
Class 1 5X 72&Q 

Book ^- ^- ; ~ 



,-v ° F 

^Bee^her 




APR 25 1887 






ANECDOTES 



OF 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 



N. A. SHENSTONE. 



PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED. 




CHICAGO: 
R. R, DONNELLEY & SONS, PUBLISHERS, 

1887. 



$• 



4? 



Copyright, 1887, 

Br R. E. DONNELLEY & SONa 

CHICAGO. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGH. 

I. — A.NCESTRAL TKEE OP THE BEECHERS, - - 9 

II.— Birthplace and Childhood, 20 

III.— His School-Boy Days, - - - -27 

IV.— From Gay to Grave, 39 

V.— In Hoosierdom, - - - - - 50 

VI. — Called to Indianapolis, 58 

VII.— Beecher and Early Brooklyn, - - -74 

VIII.— Personality sans Parsonality, - - 88 

IX. — Politics in the Pulpit, - - - - 99 

X. — Slavery and Emancipation, - - - 114 

XI.— In the Old World, - v - - - 129 

XII.— The Preaching op Peace, - ... 144 

XIII.— Jewelry and Hobbles, - - - - 162 

XIV. — A Distressing Episode, - - 3 178 

XV.— Lecturing Tour, - » - - - 188 

XVI. — At Home at Peekskill, - - - 201 

XVIL— "To the Front in Politics Again," - - 216 

XVIII.— "Startling Things," 223 

XIX. — Again in England, ----- 232 

XX.— Home Again, - - . - - - 240 

XXI. — Last Discourse, - 248 

XXIL— His Work is Done, 278 

XXIII.— Lying in State, ... - 294 

XXIV. — Ministers, Toilers and Everybody, - - 326 

XXV.— Public Opinion, 337 

XXVI. — Lost Among the Hills, - - - 352 

XXVIL— Tribute from England, - - . - 371 

XXVIII.— Character Sketches, 383 

XXIX.— Selections prom Writings, - - - 401 

XXX.— Mr. Beecher's Belief, 429 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Lyman Beecher nsr 1803, - - 19 

The Old Beecher House, New Haven - - 29 

Lot Benton's House, ... 37 

Yale College in 1793, ..... 47 

East Hampton Church, ..... 59 

Beecher House at East Hampton, ... 69 

Beecher's House at Litchfield, - - - 79 

Hanover Church, Boston, .... 89 

Beecher's Home, Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, - - 97 

Lyman Beecher, - 109 

Harriet Beecher Stowe, ..... 121 

Henry Ward Beecher at 25, - - - - 133 

Plymouth Congregational Church, Brooklyn, - 145 

Henry Ward Beecher in 1863, - - - 157 

Plymouth Lecture Koom. — Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, 169 

Bethel Sunday School, ..... 181 

Henry Ward Beecher at the Age of Sixty, - - 193 

Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, .... 205 

Isabella Beecher Hooker, - 221 

Catherine Beecher, - 231 

Beecher's Home in Brooklyn, .... 257 

The Beecher Home in Peekskill, - - - 275 

Hallway in the Peekskill House, - - - 291 

Silver Wedding at Plymouth Church. - - 317 

Beecher's Reception on his Seventieth Birthday, - 331 

The Faithful Wife's Vigil, .... 345 

Thirteenth Regiment Saluting the Remains, • - 359 

Lying in State, ... . 373 

The Last Look, ...... 389 



PREFACE. 



Current literature has had much to say of the 

life and work of Henry Ward Beecher, and many 

interesting reminiscences and anecdotes have been 

given, the best of which, together with selections 

from various biographies, it is the purpose of this 

book to present in collected form. The work has 

been compiled from the following sources: "Lives 

and Deeds of Our Self -Made Men," by Mrs. Harriet 

Beecher Stowe ; " Successful People," by M. H. 

Smith; The Christian Advocate; Christian Herald; 

The Continent; Scribners Monthly; Contemporary 

Review; Atlantic Monthly; Appleton; Democratic 

Review; Harper's Magazine; the daily papers of 

New York and Chicago ; and the writings of Henry 

Ward Beecher. 

The Authok. 

April 15, 1887. 



ANECDOTES 

OF 

Henry Ward Beecher. 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE BEECHERS. 

Henry Ward Beecher, the eighth child of Lyman 
and Roxana Foot Beecher, was born in Litchfield, 
Conn., June 24, 1813. From the days of Hannah 
Beecher, a widow who settled in New Hampshire in 
1638, eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims, 
down to the present celebrated family of preachers and 
litterateurs, extends a long line of New England ances- 
tors, nearly all of whom were remarkable for physical 
prowess or intellectual vigor. 

No Beecher came over in the Mayflower. The first 
Americans of that name were part of a company who 
came to New England in 1638, eighteen years after 
the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. This company, 
finding theological controversy rife in Massachusetts, 
resolved to form a new colony. They pitched upon a 
spot called by the Indians Quinnipiac, named Red 
9 



10 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mount by the Dutch, but to which they gave the name 
of New Haven on account of its good harbor. Of this 
company was Hannah Beecher, who had become a 
widow just before they sailed. She was induced to 
go with the expedition by the assurance that she 
should receive her husband's share in the town plot. 
The first sermon preached to the company, after 
their arrival at their new home, was by Master John 
Davenport, under a great oak which stood on the 
widow's plot. The spot is marked by the " Old 
Beecher House," now standing in New Haven. Han- 
nah Beecher lived a score of years, and died, leaving 
an estate valued at £55 5s. 6(/. With her came her 
son John, who had already reached man's estate. His 
son Joseph, the first American-born Beecher, was 
mighty in hands and spine. He could lift a barrel of 
cider by the chines and drink out of the bung-hole 
— a feat which we commend to the trial of the strong 
men of our day. His son Nathaniel was a blacksmith, 
and his anvil stood on the stump of the old oak from 
which Davenport preached the first sermon ever deliv- 
ered in Connecticut. He, too, was a strong man, 
though not so strong as his father; still he could lift 
a barrel of cider into a cart. He stood six feet high, 
and was the last of the tall Beechers. None of the 
race since have quite come up to the standard Ameri- 
can height. 



ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE BEECHERS. 11 

Next came David, the father of Lyman, a short, 
square-built man — blue-eyed, and a half Welsh by 
blood — strong enough to carry a barrel of cider into 
the cellar; a blacksmith, like his father, and also a 
farmer, who made famous hoes, and raised excellent 
rye and wheat. He kept, moreover, a boarding-house 
for the accommodation of Yale students and members 
of the Legislature. His table was a little more lux- 
urious than was the custom of the country; conse- 
quently he was afflicted with dyspepsia and the conse- 
quent blues. Moreover, he had a sun-stroke while out 
soldiering toward the close of the Revolutionary war, 
which did not tend to improve his spirits. In his 
later years he always fancied himself bankrupt, and 
on the point of coming to want. Still he lived well ; 
and when he died was found to have laid up four or 
five thousand dollars — a very fair estate for the times. 
He was a very well-read man, but notably careless 
and absent-minded — a trait which was transmitted to 
his more famous son. 

David Beecher was five times married, and had a 
dozen children, of whom all but four died in infancy. 
Lyman Beecher was the only child of Esther Lyman, 
the third and best-loved of the five wives. She died 
of consumption two days after the birth of her son. 

The motherless babe was almost from birth adopted 
by his mother's sister, the childless wife of Lot Ben- 



12 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ton, a well-to-do farmer of Guilford, a few miles from 
New Haven. Worthy Uncle Lot was a true father to 
the child, one of whose daughters long after described 
him under the name of " Uncle Lot Griswold." He 
was a tall, bright, dark-eyed man of pleasant counte- 
nance; always scheming, and contriving, and farming 
on the principle of making his land yield the most 
with the least outlay. The first sixteen years of the 
life of Lyman Beecher were passed mainly with Uncle 
Lot. 

We get glimpses of the way in which well-to-do 
people in Connecticut lived two generations ago. Six 
mahogany chairs, in a shut-up parlor, were considered 
magnificent. Good David Beecher never got beyond 
cherry. 

" We raised our breadstuffs," said Lyman, " and 
fodder for stock, and cut salt hay on the marsh. Raised 
an acre or two of flax, though it was impossible to keep 
Aunt Benton in spinning for the winter. In fall and 
winter there was wood to be cut and hauled. In June 
we went to Quinnepaug Outlet to wash sheep; a day 
or two afterward we sheared them. Then the fleece 
was salted, carded, and spun, all in the house ; flax in 
winter, wool in summer. They made all sorts of linen 
work, table-doths, shirting, sheeting, and cloths. 
Thrifty Aunt Benton and Annis — a bright thirteen- 
year old girl — got up very early in the morning and 



ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE BEECHERS. 13 

made breakfast, for which there was rye bread, butter, 
buckwheat cakes, and pie. After the dishes were 
washed Annis and I helped aunt milk. We dined on 
salt pork, vegetables, and pies ; corned beef also ; and 
always on Sunday a boiled Indian pudding. We made 
a stock of pies on Thanksgiving, froze them for winter 
use, and they lasted until March." Of the durability 
of these Connecticut pies a good story is told. It is 
said, on taking down the pantry of an old house, under 
it was found one of these pies, in perfect preservation, 
though the earthen dish which had contained it was 
entirely decayed. 

None of this remarkable family have been more 
gifted nor more eccentric than Dr. Lyman Beecher. 
Yet his son, Edward Beecher, is well known as a 
theological writer, and his two daughters, Miss Cathe- 
rine Beecher and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, have 
been women of rare abilities, and have made their 
mark on the times, and sad havoc with New England 
theology ; while Henry Ward Beecher, the most dis- 
tinguished of the sons, for many years occupied the 
foremost position among pulpit orators of America. 
They would seem, as a family, to owe their success 
partly to their audacity, but principally to a certain 
rough vigor and energy of character, and to their 
sympathy with the popular tendencies of their coun- 



14 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

try, characteristics in a large measure the result of 
early experiences. 

Fifty years ago, Lyman Beecher ranked among the 
first of living pulpit orators, and in his own country was 
without a rival. He was a graduate of Yale College, 
and he acquired in that institution an unusual reputa- 
tion for fine speaking. 

His first pastorate in 1799 was over a church in 
East Hampton, Long Island. This church had a bell 
and a clock, and was the largest and most splendid on 
the Island. The building, its interior quite altered, 
still stands, and bids fair to stand for another century. 

Beecher' s ministry at East Hampton lasted for a 
little less than twelve years. He preached earnestly, 
and in every way labored zealously in his vocation. 
Revival after revival rewarded his efforts. For rest, 
he fished some, and took good care of his five-acre plot, 
set out an orchard, the first known in the place, for the 
farmers had thought apples would not grow so near 
the salt water. His wife planted flowers and shrubs 
in the front yard of the parsonage — they say that a 
snow-ball and a catalpa of her planting are still living 
— and set out shade trees before the house. Others 
followed their good example, and set about beautify- 
ing their homes. Trees sprung up in the place of the 
old wood-piles, and now one can hardly find a more 
beautifully shaded place than East Hampton. 



ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE BEECHERS. 15 

In 1804 he preached a sermon on the death of 
Alexander Hamilton, which drew to him the eyes of 
half the nation, and when, some years later, he gave 
his heart and genius to the temperance cause, six of 
the sermons that he preached touched the high-water 
marks of his unrivaled eloquence. 

Many anecdotes are on record of Lyman Beecher's 
eccentricities. He was a very humorous specimen of 
the old time clergy, nor did he always keep his humor 
out of the pulpit. He was called "the riddling par- 
son," because he was so full of magnetism, and became 
so excited over his own discourses, that he could not 
sleep at night until he had calmed himself down to an 
ordinary level by playing " Auld Lang Syne " on the 
violin, and worked off his surplus enthusiasm by a 
double-shuffle on his kitchen floor. 

He felt the need of exercise on Sunday. He would 
not work; he dared not ride; so he shoveled sand in 
the cellar, choosing sand because it made no noise. 

An incident is told of a young man who came to 
town with an Episcopal ordination upon him. He 
tried to convince Dr. Beecher that he had no right to 
preach, because the bishop of his church had not laid 
his hands upon him. 

" I will tell you a story," said the Doctor. " There 
was a blacksmith in our town, and his father was a 
blacksmith before him, and his grandfather before 



16 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHER. 

him. He was a clumsy slioer, his tools were coarse, 
and his scythes without temper. A new-comer dis- 
turbed his peace and took the town custom. He 
regarded the new-comer as an interloper, and thought 
he ought to have the custom because of his descent 
from his father and grandfather. ' I care nothing 
about your father and grandfather,' said the new 
blacksmith ; ' My scythes cut. I would rather have 
this brand on my tools than a certificate of descent 
from Tubal Cain.' " 

Dr. Beecher came into the world for the purpose of 
seeing it. His eye was never closed, his tongue never 
tied. His speech was clear and sharp. He was a 
theological fighter by taste and instinct. His father 
was a blacksmith, full of sound sense and given to 
disputation. This habit Lyman Beecher inherited, 
and early in life he swung the sledgehammer of assault 
against all that seemed to him unworthy, until the 
country rang with the echo of his blows. 

At one time he produced great excitement attacking 
Unitarianism with a vigorous hand. He had blows to 
take as well as blows to give. Some of the assaults 
on him were clearly libelous. His friends advised 
him to sue the maligners. He said, "No; when I 
lived in Litchfield, I wanted a book from the library 
of Tale College. In my return I walked up the hill 
with the folio under my arm. I saw a black and white 



ANCESTRAL THEE OF THE BEECHERS. 17 

squirrel before me, and I said, ' Shoo ! ' The squirrel 
did not run, but turned and looked at me. I shied a 
stone, and it missed. In my excitement I hurled the 
volume. The book was ruined, and I had to burn my 
clothes. Since that time I have never thrown a body 
of divinity at a skunk." 

Out of the pulpit, Dr. Beecher was a somewnat 
impracticable and erratic person. His wife, who was 
refined and well balanced, had much of her time occu- 
pied in undoing the mischief her husband did. For 
instance, Lyman Beecher once bought and sent home a 
bale of cotton simply because it was cheap, without any 
idea or plan for its use. His wife, at first discomfitted, 
at once projected the unheard-of luxury of a carpet, 
carded and spun the cotton, hired it woven, cut and 
sewed it to fit the parlor, stretched and nailed it to the 
garret floor and brushed it over with thin paste. Then 
she sent to her New York brother for oil paints, learned 
from an encyclopedia how to prepare them, and then 
adorned the carpet with groups of flowers, imitating 
those in her small yard and garden. This illustrates 
at once the improvidence of the father and the useful 
and aesthetic turn of the mind of the mother, who 
seems to have had high ideals and great perseverance 
in attaining excellence under most unfavorable circum- 
stances. 

The people were astounded at the magnificence of 



18 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

the pastor's parlor when the new carpet was laid down, 
for it was the first ever seen in East Hampton. Good 
old Deacon Tallmadge coming one day, stopped at the 
door, afraid to enter. " Walk in, deacon," said the 
pastor. " I can't," he answered, " 'thont steppin' on't," 
adding after a moment's wondering admiration, "D'ye 
think ye can have all that and heaven too?" The 
good deacon in a breath got off a conple of mots which 
have since done good service in comic papers and re- 
ligious tracts. 

Lyman Beecher was passionately fond of children; 
his Avife was not. They had thirteen, and the 
father, who married three times, chose his last wife 
after he was sixty years of age. Lyman Beecher was 
imaginative, impulsive and averse to hard study. His 
wife Avas calm and self-possessed and solved mathema- 
tical problems not only for practical purposes, but 
because she enjoyed that kind of mental effort. Lyman 
Beecher was trained as a dialectician and felt that he 
excelled in argumentation, and yet his wife, without 
any such training, he remarked, was the only person 
he had met that he felt was fully his equal in an argu- 
ment. He had that kind of love for his children that 
moved him to caress and fondle them ; she, on the con- 
trary, did not care to nurse or tend them, although she 
was eminently benevolent and very tender and sympa- 
thetic. In other words, as the late Catharine Beecher 



ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE BEECHERS. 



19 



once wrote, " My father seemed by natural organiza- 
tion to have what one usually deemed the natural 
traits of woman, while my mother had some of those 
which often are claimed to be the distinctive attributes 
of man." 




Lyman Beecher in 1803, Aged 

Seepage 13. 



CHAPTEE II. 

BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD. 

Dr. Beecher's residence was a plain but substantial 
dwelling, characteristic of its State, standing in a 
broad inclosure upon a wide and grass-grown street 
and surrounded by tall and spreading elm trees. In 
the early days at Litchfield the doctor's salary was eight 
hundred dollars a year, and not always promptly paid, 
and the clothing and educating of his family became 
a dark problem. Young ladies attending a neighbor- 
ing seminary were taken as boarders, and into this 
great bustling household of older people, all going 
their separate ways and having their separate interests 
to carry, Henry Ward Beecher was born. To be 
washed and dressed and sent to school in the morning 
and hustled to bed at the earliest possible hour at night 
was about all the attention the younger members 
received, and the child growing up in this busy circle 
had impressed upon it a sense of its own insignificance 
and of the necessity of obedience and non-resistance in 
regard to all grown-up people. 

His own mother survived Henry's birth only three 

years. His early impression of her was that she was 

" the law of purity and the law of honor." 
20 



BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD. 21 

His sister, Mrs. Stowe, to whom we are indebted 
for most of the glimpses of his childhood and youth, 
remembers his golden curls of that day and the little 
black frock that he wore " as he frolicked like a kitten 
in the sun, in ignorant joy." Though too young to 
attend her funeral or to understand all that the great 
change implied, that his mind had been busy with the 
problem is clear from this anecdote. He was told at 
one time that mother had been laid in the ground, at 
another, that she had gone to heaven; whereupon 
Henry, putting the two things together, was found one 
morning, digging with great zeal and earnestness 
under his sister's window. She called to him to know 
what he was doing, and lifting up his curly head with 
pathetic simplicity, he answered, " Why, I'm going to 
heaven to find ma." 

The step-mother who came into Dr. Beecher's 
home was a lady of great personal elegance and attrac- 
tiveness, of high intellectual and moral refinement, but 
with delicate health and, withal, such dignity that her 
influence was somewhat depressing upon children full 
of animal spirits and vigor. She had been much ad- 
mired in general society, and in undertaking the care 
of a poor minister's family of ten children, combined 
with her attachment for a man of power and genius, an 
impulse of moral heroism. The children, Henry and 
Harriet (Mrs. Stowe), she found "as lovely children 



22 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

as she had ever seen, amiable, affectionate, and very 
bright," though of Henry she added that he ''had no 
great love of books." She had a natural inclination 
toward extreme rectitude and propriety, with an un- 
yielding conscience and habits of peculiar exactness. 
I he absurdities and crudities of such childhood ap- 
peared to her as serious faults, and she conscientiously 
strove to instruct their young minds by reading and 
praying with them, until they came to view religion as 
cold and austere like herself. 

Henry always felt when he went to prayer as 
though he were "going into a crypt, where the sun 
was not allowed to come," and he shrank from it. On 
his father's farm there was a poor man who, in his de- 
votions, used alternately to sing, pray, and laugh, and 
in this method of worship the boy found great fascina- 
tion. Upon his mind this poor man made a pro- 
founder impression than his step-mother, and though 
Charles Smith was many degrees below the boy in 
society, the boy learned to feel that he was the pauper 
and Smith the rich man. Years afterward Mr. 
Beecher said: "I would gladly have changed con- 
ditions with him, if. by so doing, I could have ob- 
tained his grace and his hope of heaven." 

Henry was greatly influenced by her, although she 
was never able to impart any of her orderliness and 
primness to either him or his brothers and sisters. 



BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD. 23 

When a little fellow, so small that his feet swung 
free from the floor of the old family chaise, he was 
once driving with his mother on an errand. As 
was the custom, the bell tolled for a death. 

" Henry, what do you think of when you hear a bell 
tolling like that ? " she asked. Filled with awe and 
surprise at having his thoughts inquired into, the 
child colored deeply and was silent, while she went on 
as in a revery: 

"I think, was that soul prepared? It has gone 
into eternity ! " 

The impression on the boy's mind was of dread, 
like being turned out without clothing, in the icy fields 
of Litchfield's frozen hills. 

Henry Ward's boyhood was innocent of children's 
literature, Sunday-school gatherings and the day of 
fetes and festivals that color the childhood of the 
present day. 

Keferring to this time in his autobiography, he 
says: "The only time that brought us any especial 
favor was Thanksgiving, when New England house- 
wives vied with one another in the composition of 
unique pies in limitless quantity. 

"I didn't have any jumping -jacks, nor tops, nor 
marbles, nor toys of any kind. It doesn't seem to me 
that I knew any boys to play with, either. We lived 



24 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in a part of the village where there didn't seem to be 
any boys. 

kt And so I was let alone. My father was kept busy 
with his pastoral duties, and iny mother had so many 
other children to attend to that little attention was 
paid to me. Still, I was not lonesome. I was not 
fond of reading, but I used to like to tramp about the 
woods, and down by the brooks among the fens and 
brakes. 1 would go on a hunt for sweet- flag and sas- 
safras, and I knew just where to find the squirrels. I 
found plenty to do. 

'•Occasionally the paternal government would reach ; 
sometimes my father would whip me. I remember 
that he used to tell me that the whipping hurt him 
more than it did me. It was hard to believe, because 
he was a strong man, but I believed it, and it used to 
make me cry to be told so ; then of course I had to cry 
when the whipping began, and, all in all, these were 
very doleful episodes." 

The first steps in his education were taken at a 
Widow Kilbourne's, where he was perched upon a 
bench for several idle hours daily, only being called 
upon twice each day to say his letters. Of this time 
his autobiography again gives us a picture: "A hazy 
image of myself comes back to me— a lazy, dreamy 
boy, with his head on the desk, half lulled asleep by 
the buzzing of a great bluebottle fly, and the lowing 



BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD. '25 

of the cows, and the tinkling of their bells, brought 
in the open door across the sunny fields and mead- 
ows." 

When his lessons were learned he graduated into a 
little unpainted district schoolhouse near the parson- 
age, where he was exercised in reading the Bible and 
"The Columbian Orator," in elementary arithmetic 
and handwriting. But he avowed that he learned 
nothing there, for he did not feel any inclination to 
study. 

The life of the minister's children, characterized by 
an almost Spartan simplicity, together with the winds 
and deep snows of the mountain town, developed rug- 
gedness, energy, and self reliance. In Henry, these 
traits were especially strong. "At nine years of age," 
writes his sister, " in one of those winter draughts 
common in New England towns, he harnessed the 
horse to a sledge, with a barrel lashed thereon, and 
went off alone three miles over the bleak top of the 
town hill, to dip up and bring home a barrel of water 
from a distant spring. So far from considering this a 
hardship, he undertook it with a chivalric pride. His 
only trial in the case was the humiliation of being 
positively commanded by his careful step- mother to 
wear his overcoat; he departed, obedient but with 
tears of mortification freezing on his cheeks, for he 



26 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

had recorded an heroic vow to go through a whole 
winter without once wearing an overcoat." 

At ten years of age he was a strong, well-grown 
boy, obedient, used, too, to hearing all the great theo- 
logical questions of Calvinism discussed in his own 
home and to argue upon them himself. 

His father's house was the headquarters of theo- 
logical disputation, and many a battle was waged 
across the hospitable board, while the big-eyed chil- 
dren listened to that which no one could explain. 

He entered a private school in Bethlehem, near 
Litchfield, under the charge of the Rev. Dr. Langdon. 
These schooldays were not such as to forecast a bril- 
liant future, for he was deficient in memory, a poor 
writer and worse speller, the smoothness of his Latin 
exercises showing unmistaken signs of cribbing. He 
was painfully sensitive and diffident to the verge of 
stupidity. Partly from bashful ness and partly from 
an enlargement of the tonsils of his throat, his utter- 
ance was thick and indistinct. 

"When Henry is sent to me with a message," said 
a good aunt, " I always have to make him say it three 
times. The first time I have no manner of an idea 
more than if he spoke Choctaw; the second, I catch 
now and then a word: by the third time I begin to 
understand." Who would predict for this lad the 
future of an orator? 



CHAPTEK III. 



HIS SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. 



All of Mr. Beeclier's boyhood as well as his later 
life was characterized by an intense love of nature and 
a fondness amounting almost to a passion, for being 
out of doors. The scenery around the parsonage fed 
this yearning, — on one side the fields of waving grain, 
and the lovely wooded slopes of Chestnut Hill ; on the 
other, Mount Tom with its cover of steel-blue pines 
mirrored in the gleaming lake at its base. At Bethle- 
hem, too, he spent hours wandering about old orchards 
or in the deep woods. 

The melancholy which found the deeper side of the 
boy's nature was often lost sight of in an equally 
natural and constantly effervescing spirit of fun. 
When, after an unprofitable year at Bethlehem, he was 
transferred to his sister's school for young ladies at 
Hartford, he quickly gained the reputation of being 
" an inveterate joker and an indifferent scholar." One 
boy of eleven years has not much opportunity of mak- 
ing a lasting impression among thirty or forty girls, 
but we doubt whether any of his schoolmates ever 

forgot him. The school was separated into two divis- 
27 



28 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ions for the study of grammar under leaders, and the 
grammatical reviews were contests where it was im- 
portant that every member should be perfected. Henry 
was generally the last one chosen, being considered 
rather amusing than profitable on such an occasion. 
On one of these occasions a fair friend took him aside 
and endeavored to instill into his mind some of the 
definitions and distinctions on which the class honor 
depended. 

" Now, Henry. A is a definite article, you see, and 
must be used only with a singular noun. You can Bay 
a man, but you can't say a men. can you? " 

" Yes, I can say Amen too. ,, was the ready reply. 
" Father says it always at the end of his prayers." 

"Come Henry, now don't be joking; now decline 
He." 

" Nominative he, possessive his, objective him." 

" You see, His is possessive. Now you can say His 
book, but you can't say Him book." 

" Yes, I do say Hymnbook, too," said the imprac- 
ticable boy with a quizzical look in his merry blue eyes. 
Each of these sallies made his youthful instructor 
laugh, which was the victory he wished. 

" But now Henry, seriously, just attend to the 
active and passive. Now, ' I strike,' is active, you 
see, because if you strike, you do something. But, 



HIS SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. 



29 



' I am struck ' is passive, because if you are struck 
you don't do anything, do you? " 

" Yes I do, I strike back again! " 

Occasionally, he offered gratuitously some of his 




The old Beecher House, New Haven. 

See page 10. 



views on philosophical subjects. His sister in consid- 
eration of his frisky nature, placed him at her side 
while hearing recitations. 

A class in Natural Philosophy, not well prepared, 
was stumbling through the theory of the tides. 

"I can explain that," said Henry. " Well, you see 
the sun; he catches hold of the moon and pulls her, 



30 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and she catches hold of the sea and pulls that, and 
this makes the spring tides." 

"But what makes the neap tides?" 

" Oh, that is when the sun stops to spit on his 
hands," was the brisk rejoinder. 

At the age of twelve the whole atmosphere of his 
life was changed by the removal of the family from the 
dear old home in Litchfield to Boston. There Henry 
entered the Latin School. In a year of dry, hard 
study, with fear of disgrace, conscience and affection 
urging him on, he succeeded in mastering the Latin 
grammar so that he could give any form or inflection, 
rule or exception in the book. But he had become 
moody and restless. The restraint of life in the city, 
surrounded by high Avails and confined for his sport to 
narrow streets, depressed his mind and distracted his 
feelings, so that in after years he believed that, had 
not a change occurred, he would have gone to de- 
struction. Of this period he himself writes: 

"My father let me read the stories of Nelson and 
Captain Cook. The adventure fever that often seizes 
boys took hold of me. I had all sorts of fancy-drawn 
pictures of what I might do in the jungles and deserts 
of the Orient. 

"I used to lounge about the docks and wharves in 
Boston and listen to the shouts of the sailors and watch 



HIS SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. 31 

tlie great merchantmen make ready for their voyage to 
the Indies. At last I could stand it no longer." 

He wrote to his brother of his resolve to go to sea, 
with or without his father's permission. Dr. Beecher 
read the letter, and for the moment said nothing, but 
the next day asked Henry to help him saw wood. 
Henry felt complimented by this invitation as imply- 
ing a kind of manly companionship, for the wood-pile 
was the Doctor's favorite ground for debate. 

"Let us see," said the Doctor; "Henry, how old 
are you?" 

"Almost fourteen!" 

"Bless me! how boys do grow! Why, it's almost 
time to be thinking what you are going to do. Have 
you ever thought?" 

"Yes; I want to go to sea." 

"To sea! Of all things! Well, well! After all, 
why not? Of course you don't want to be a common 
sailor, I suppose?" 

"No, sir; I want to be a midshipman, and after 
that a commodore." 

" I see," said the Doctor, cheerfully. " Well, 
Henry, in order for that, you know, you must begin a 
course of mathematics, and study navigation and 
all that." 

" Yes, sir, I am ready." 

" Well, then, I'll send you up to Amherst next 



32 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

week, to Mount Pleasant, and then you'll begin your 
preparatory studies, and if you are well prepared, I 
presume I can make interest to get you an appoint- 
ment. 

But when the next week came, and Henry started 
for Mount Pleasant, Dr. Beecher said wisely to an- 
other member of his family, " I shall have that boy in 
the ministry yet." 

The transfer to Aniherst brought about an immedi- 
ate change for the better. Under the mathematical 
tuition of Fitzgerald, a graduate of West Point, and 
for whom he conceived a genuine liking, inspired by a 
desire to please his friend and high ambition for his 
future profession, he worked laboriously and unceas- 
ingly, with his face toward the navy and Nelson as his 
ideal. 

Thanks to Fitzgerald, his mathematical training 
gave him entire mastery of La Croix's Algebra, so that 
he was prepared to demonstrate at random any propo- 
sition as chance selected — not only without aid or 
prompting from the teacher, but controversially as 
against the teacher, who would sometimes publicly 
attack the pupil's method of demonstration, disputing 
him step by step, when the scholar was expected to 
know, with such positive clearness as to put down and 
overthrow the teacher. " You must not only know, 
but you must know that you know," was Fitzgerald's 



HIS SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. 33 

maxim; and Henry Ward attributed much of his sub- 
sequent habit of steady unantagonistic defence of his 
own opinions to this early mathematical training. 

Here, also he was put through a systematic course 
of elocution by Prof. John E. Lovell, which developed 
his voice and taught him the use of gestures and the 
proper management of his body. In later years, he 
always considered that the removal of his natural disa- 
bilities, without which he could never have attained 
success as a speaker, was due entirely to Prof. Lovell. 

At the close of the first year a religious revival 
took place which crystallized into more definite form 
the keen sensibilities and vague purposes — forming an 
undercurrent of religious feeling which had been the 
habit of his life and the result of his whole home edu- 
cation. 

Going to Boston at his father's request, he there 
united with the Hanover Street Church. Naval pro- 
jects vanished and the pulpit opened before him as a 
natural result, for Dr. Beecher was an enthusiast in 
his profession. 

For two years more Henry devoted himself to 
classical studies at Amherst, with a view to entering 
college. 

At this time his love of flowers, which always 
formed part of his enthusiasm for nature, found a 
sympathizing helper in an old gardener who set apart 



34 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a plot of ground for Beecher's special use. This he 
filled with roses, geraniums, and other flowering 
plants, and tended with great devotion. The chaplain 
of Mount Pleasant Institute once finding Henry on his 
knees, bending over a little flower in wrapt contem- 
plation of its buds and blossoms, said condescend- 
ingly : 

" Oh, Henry, these things are pretty, very pretty, 
but, my boy, do you think that such things are worthy 
to occupy the attention of a man who has an immortal 
soul?" 

Henry only answered with that abashed, half-stolid 
look, which covered so much from the eyes of his 
superiors, and went on with his attentions to his 
plants. 

" I wanted to tell him," he afterwards said, " that 
since Almighty God has found leisure to make those 
trifles, it could not be amiss for us to find time to 
look at them." 

In 1830 he entered the freshman class at Amherst, 
although the advanced state of his preparation entitled 
him to enter as a sophomore; his father deemed it 
best that he should have leisure during the first year 
to employ in planning and commencing a course for 
self culture in the college libraries, which he after- 
ward systematically pursued, and in the study of ora- 
tory and rhetoric. As he himself said: 



HIS SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. 35 

"I had acquired, by Latin and mathematics, the 
power of study. I knew how to study, and I turned 
it upon things I wanted to know. I studied what I 
liked and didn't study what I didn't like. 

"Much of my time was spent in running about 
among the hills and gorges near the quaint old town. 
I was a powerful young fellow, with wind and perspi- 
ration up to high-water mark. I was a runner and a 
gymnast, and fond of kicking the foot-ball. 

" And I was very fond of a good time; full of jokes 
and jollity of all kinds, and always ready for anything 
that promised fun." 

In his Sophomore year he had the reputation of 
being the best writer and orator in his class, and was 
appointed president of the Athenaeum society, though, 
owing to his neglect of the classics, he never attained 
class honors. 

His classmates recall his mastery in debate and say 
that he had a power of ridicule and badinage that 
made him always a powerful advocate and a formidable 
antagonist. Although in maturer life he avoided con- 
troversies and taught the largest liberty in thought 
and action, while pursuing his studies, both in college 
and seminary he was quick to accept the gauntlet of 
discussions and prone to start a train of thought that 
was certain to provoke a challenge. 

In this year another revival took place which, per- 



36 ANECDOTES OF HENRI WARD BEECHER. 

haps, marks the real starting point of his religions 
life. Of this period his sister wrote: "'The only- 
thing which prevented him from taking the first rank 
as a religious young man was the want of that sobriety 
and solemnity which was looked upon as essential to 
the Christian character. Mr. Beecher was like a con- 
verted bob-o-link, who should be brought to judgment 
for short quirks and undignified twitters and tweedles, 
among the daisy heads, instead of flying in dignified 
paternal sweeps, like a good swallow of the sanctuary, 
or sitting in solemnized meditation in the depths of 
pine trees like the owl. His condemnation from the 
stricter brethren generally came with the sort of quali- 
fication which Shakespeare makes. — 

" ' For the man doth fear God, howbeit, it doth not 
always appear, by reason of some large jests, which he 
will make.' " 

Mr. Beecher, on one occasion, Avas informed that 
the head tutor of the class was about to make him a 
grave exhortatory visit. The tutor was almost seven 
feet high, and solemn as an Alpine forest; but Mr. 
Beecher knew that, like most solemn Yankees, he was 
at heart a deplorable wag, a mere whited sepulcher of 
conscientious gravity, with measureless depths of 
unrenewed chuckle hid away in the depths of his 
heart. When apprised of his approach, he suddenly 
whisked into the wood closet the chairs of his room, 



HIS SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. 37 

leaving only a low one which had been sawed off at 
the second joint, so that it stood about a foot from the 
floor. 

He had made for himself at the the carpenter's, a 
circular table with a hole in the middle, where was 
fixed a seat. Into this table he crawled, and seated 
meekly among his books, awaited the visit. 



■ 




Lot Benton's House. 

See page t2. 



A grave rap was heard. " Come in." 

Far up in the air, the solemn dark face appeared. 
Mr. Beecher rose ingeniously and offered to come out. 
"No, never mind," said the visitor, "I just came to 
have a little conversation with you. Don't move." 



38 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Oh," says Beeclier innocently, " pray sit down 
sir," indicating the only chair. 

The tutor looked apprehensively, but began the 
process of sitting down. He went down, down, down, 
but still no solid ground being gained, straightened 
himself and looked uneasy. 

" I don't know but that chair is too low for you," 
said Beecher meekly; " do let me get you another." 

" Oh no, ^10, my young friend, don't rise, don't 
trouble yourself, it is perfectly agreeable to me, in fact 
I like a low seat," and with these words the tall man 
doubled up like a jackknife, and was seen sitting, with 
his grave face between his knees, like a grasshopper 
drawn up for a spring. He heard a deep sigh, and his 
eyes met the eyes of Mr. Beecher ; the hidden spark 
of native depravity within him was exploded by one 
glance at those merry eyes, and he burst into a loud 
roar of merriment, which the two continued for some 
time, greatly to the amusement of the boys, who were 
watching to hear how Beecher would come out with 
his lecture. The chair was ever after known as the 
" Tutor's Delight." 



CHAPTER IV. 



FROM GAY TO GRAVE. 



At this very time, when he was passing for the first 
humorist of college, the marks along his well-worn 
volumes of old English poets show only appreciation 
of what is earnest, deep, and pathetic. He particularly 
loved an obscure old poet of whom we scarce hear in 
modern days, Daniel, who succeeded Edmund Spenser 
as poet laureate, and was a friend of Shakespeare. 
Some lines addressed by him to the Earl of Southamp- 
ton, are marked by reiterated lines in Mr. Beecher's 
copy of the old English poets, which showed enthusias- 
tic reading. He says, " This was about the only piece 
of poetry I ever committed to memory, but I read it 
so much I could not help at last knowing it by heart." 

"TO THE EARL OP SOUTHAMPTON. 

" He who hath never warred with misery, 

Nor ever tugged with fortune in distress, 
Hath no occasion and no field to try 

The strength and forces of his worthiness. 
Those parts of judgment which felicity 

Keeps as concealed, affliction must express, 
And only men show their abilities 

And what they are, in their extremities. 



40 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHER. 

" Mutius the lire, the tortures Regulus, 

Did make the miracles of faith and zeal; 
Exile renowned and graced Rutilius. 

Imprisonment and poison did reveal 
The worth of Socrates, Fabricius. 

Poverty did grace that common weal 
More than all Sylla's riches got with strife, 

And Cato's death did vie with Caesar's life. 

' ' He that endures for what his conscience knows 

Not to he ill, doth from a patience high 
Look on the only cause whereto he owes 

Those sufferings, not on his misery; 
The more he endures the more his glory grows, 

Which never grows from imbecility; 
Only the best composed and worthiest hearts 

God sets to act the hardest and constant'st parts." 

These verses are so marked with Mr. Beecher's life, 
habits of thought, with his modes of expression, that 
they show strongly the influence which these old poets 
had in forming both his habits of thought and expres- 
sion. His mind naturally aspired after heroism, and 
from the time that he gave up his youthful naval en- 
thusiasm he turned the direction of the heroic faculties 
into moral things. 

In this year, also, Mr. Beecher was led as a mere 
jovial frolic to begin a course of phrenological investi- 
gation which led to a broad physiological study and 
enquiry, and, collated with metaphysics and 
theology, has formed his system of thought through 
life. 

When Dr. Spurzheim came over from Europe to 
teach the new science of phrenology there was much 



FROM GAY TO GRAVE. 41 

opposition to him, and after his death phrenology was 
fiercely discussed and ridiculed all over the country. 
In Amherst College it was sought to demolish the 
science by getting Henry Ward Beecher to take the 
negative side of the debate on the question, " Is 
phrenology entitled to the name of science?" But 
even then, a young student, Mr. Beecher was not a 
superficial one, and he resolved to study up the sub- 
ject. So he sent to Boston by stage for the works of 
Spurzheim and Combe, intending to post himself 
from the opposition standpoint. But he found so 
much in the books that he asked for more time, and 
finally got the debate postponed two weeks. Then he 
delivered a speech in favor of phrenology that aston- 
ished the college and the town. 

After the debate young Beecher asked a classmate 
named Fowler if he would not like to read his books 
on phrenology. The young man said he would, and 
from that time the name Fowler and Phrenology be- 
come wedded. Thus it was that Henry Ward Beecher 
gave the science in America one of its most ardent 
adherents. 

Mr. Beecher' s chief ability laid in the discussion of 
talent, character and disposition. In that field his 
knowledge of phrenology is the key to his power over 
men, for then he talks directly to faculty, and as he 
goes "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," men 



42 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

feel touched in their strongest and weakest points, 
and imagine that he knows them through and 
through. 

Mr. Beecher once said to the late Samuel R 
Wells, "If I were the owner of an island, and had all 
the books, apparatuses and appliances, tools to culti- 
vate the soil, manufacture, cook and carry on life's 
affairs in comfort and refinement, and on some dark 
night pirates should come and burn my books, musical 
instruments, works of art, furniture, tools and machi- 
nery, and leave me the land and the empty barns and 
house, I should be, in respect to the successful carry- 
ing on of my affairs, in very much the same plight 
that I should be as a preacher, if phrenology and all 
that it has taught me of man, his character, his wants 
and his improvement, were blotted from my mind." 

On another occasion he said: "All my life long I 
have been in the habit of using phrenology as that 
which solves the practical phenomena of life. I re- 
gard it as far more useful, practical and sensible than 
any other system of mental philosophy which has yet 
been evolved. Certainly, phrenology has introduced 
mental philosophy to the common people." 

Through this study of phrenology Mr. Beecher got 
his first experience as a lecturer. With a classmate 
named Fowler he used to go to the little towns in the 
neighborhood and instruct the bumpkins in bump- 



FROM GAY TO GRAVE. 43 

science and its mysteries, Beeclier delivering the lec- 
ture and Fowler examining heads. 

In the last two years in college Henry taught dis- 
trict schools, beginning his library with the money 
obtained, preached and spoke regularly in religious 
meetings, lectured on temperance, and, as the anti- 
slavery agitation was just beginning, took his position 
boldly as an Abolitionist. 

In 1836, he was graduated, without any marked 
honors or reputation, save that he was a jolly good 
fellow, a choice companion and the chief in debating 
societies. 

" How did I come to be a preacher? " he once said. 
"It was fate, I suppose; that's all. I do not think 
that I can honestly assign any other reason. I took 
to preaching, as did all of my brothers, simply because 
nobody ever dreamed of my father's boys doing any- 
thing else. 

" That's all there is to it." 
. His father, two years before this, had gone to Cin- 
cinnati, and thither the young man followed him, to 
find the abolition excitement at Lane Seminary, where 
his venerable father was president, just ended by the 
departure from its doors of an entire class of thirty 
students, with Theodore Weld at their head. 

Here he was thrown into a life full of activity. 
Cincinnati, removed from slave territory only by the 



44 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

width of the Ohio river, was convulsed with the coru 
test between the slaveholders and the abolitionists. 
Steamboats, the decks of which were covered with 
chained gangs of slaves, passed daily by the wharves, 
while the Ohio river where it passed between slave and 
free territory was lined with the headquarters of Abo- 
litionist societies bent on aiding slaves to escape. 
The air was electrical with excitement, and the young 
man, thrilling at the prospect of the coming fight, felt 
his ardor redoubling before the obstacles and opposi- 
tion that confronted all Abolitionists. In 1836 he 
appeared first publicly as the champion of the anti- 
slavery cause. The utterances of the Philanthropist, 
an anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati edited by James 
G. Birney, a slaveholder who had emancipated his 
slaves, became offensive to the strong pro-slavery ele- 
ment. A riot broke out. and for a week Cincinnati 
was overrun by a mob headed by Kentucky slavehold- 
ers. Young Beecher asked to be sworn in as one of 
the special policemen, and, armed with a pistol, 
patroled the streets. At this time, in the absence of 
Mr. Brainard, he was for a few months occupying the 
editorial chair in the office of the Cincinnati Journal, 
the organ of the New School Presbyterian Church, 
ami his indignation over the Birney riot found vent in 
some pungent editorials, which produced a marked 
effect. 



FEOM GAY TO GEAVE. 45 

At this time, too, the fierce controversy of his 
father as the exponent of the New England new school 
theology and the doctrine of free agency, against Dr. 
Wilson, the advocate of the old school Calvinistic 
fatalism and the doctrine of the natural depravity of 
man, was going on. 

Dr. Beecher's heart was in the war, and he waged 
it incessantly and with characteristic vigor. 

No years of his life were more earnest and active 
than the first fifteen of those at Lane Seminary. 
"Never," said his son-in-law, "did he wheel a greater 
number of heavenly wheelbarrows at one and the same 
time." 

Of Dr. Beecher's thirteen children, eleven were liv- 
ing ; five were at home, the others widely scattered in 
various places, East and West. They had never been 
all together; some of them had never seen some of the 
others. A family meeting was at last arranged, and 
one Sunday morning the whole living family met for 
the first time under the parental roof at Walnut Hills, 
with smiles, tears, thanksgiving and sorrowing. One 
son filled the father's pulpit in the morning, another 
in the evening ; the family occupied three pews. The 
family meeting lasted two whole days. On the morn- 
ing of the third, after prayer, a farewell hymn, and a 
solemn blessing from the patriarch, they parted, never 
again to meet on earth. 



46 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WAKD BEECHEK. 

In the seminary Henry made a deep impression on 
the faculty and his fellow students by his oratorical 
excellence. His father was surprised that he took so 
little interest in the battle of the Presbyterians, and 
looked with some doubt on the future usefulness of his 
son, Nevertheless he was proud of his abilities and 
did all he could to ground him in the faith of his fath- 
ers. This was a difficult task, and caused the old 
gentleman many an anxious night, for to him the doc- 
trines were firm and steadfast, and any questioning 
that tended to unsettle them, or any one of them, was 
heresy, a little less than blasphemy. 

Mr. Beecher had inherited from his father what 
has been called a genius for friendship. He was never 
without the anchor of an enthusiastic personal attach- 
ment for somebody, and at Lane Seminary, he formed 
such an intimacy with Prof. C. E. Stowe, whose room- 
mate for some length of time he was, and in whose 
society he took great delight. Prof. Stowe, was a some- 
what strict disciplinarian and disposed to be severe on 
his young friend, who was quite too apt to neglect or 
transcend conventional rule. The morning prayers at 
Lane were at conventional hours, and Henry's devo- 
tional propensities, of a dark, cold winter morning, 
were almost impossible to be roused, while his friend, 
who was punctuality itself, was always up and away in 
the gloaming. One morning, when the professor had 



FROM GAY TO GRAVE. 



47 



indignantly rebuked the lazy young Christian, whom 
he left tucked in bed, and, shaking the dust from his 
feet, had departed to his morning duties, Henry took 
advantage of his own habits of alert motion, sprang 
from the bed, dressed himself in a twinkling, and 
taking a cross-lot passage, was found decorously sitting 




Yale College in 1793. 

See page 14. 

directly under the professor's desk, waiting for him, 
when he entered to conduct prayers. The stare of 
almost frightened amazement with which the professor 
met him, was the ample reward of his exertion. 

Mr. Beecher's first steps in preaching were taken 
while he was yet in college, and in all the years that 



48 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

followed lie never preached what was regarded as a 
commonplace sermon. 

During his course at Lane Seminary, he spent a 
week at his brother's house, and consented to preach 
for him. Mr. Beecher, in writing recently to the edi- 
tor of the Brooklyn Magazine, thus refers to the inci- 
dent: "My brother George wished to be away a 
Sunday and I was requested by him to supply his pul- 
pit. Text, sermon, and all attendent circumstances are 
gone from my memory, except the greenness — no doubt 
of that." 

In his last theological term, the great question 
which had long been troubling him, of "what to 
preach," was solved. To present Jesus Christ, per- 
sonally, as the friend and helper of humanity, Christ 
as God impersonate, eternally and by a necessity of 
his nature helpful and remedial and restorative, the 
friend of each individual soul, and thus the friend of 
all society ; this was the one thing which his soul 
rested on as a worthy object in entering the ministry. 
He afterward said in speaking of his feelings at this 
time: "I was like the man in the story to whom a 
fairy gave a purse with a single piece of money in it, 
which he found always come again as soon as he had 
spent it. I thought I knew at last one thing to preach, 
I found it included everything." 

On leaving the seminary he was selected to deliver 



FROM GAY TO GEAVE. 49 

the commencement oration. This oration was an 
attack on the absurdities of the then preachers, their 
manners, customs, habits — particularly their attire. 
The point that he made was, that the clergy should 
dress and address like other men — that they should be 
careful to avoid all strong marks that would distin- 
guish them from others. The oration was full of 
humor; and to cause himself to correspond with his 
teachings, his dress was with an open throat, with a 
very narrow cravat, and more in the style of a sailor 
than a clergyman of the time. 

This oration at Lane Seminary might be said to be 
the key to his whole public life. It began there with 
combatting the peculiarities of the clergy — and thus 
he has been a combatant the whole of his career. He 
was never so happy as when in the midst of a fierce 
combat. 
4 



CHAPTER V. 

IN HOOSIERDOM. 

In 1837 Mr. Beecher concluded his theological 
studies and married Miss Eunice White Bullard, a 
daughter of Dr. Bullard of Worcester, Mass., to whom 
he had been engaged for seven years. She was slightly 
older than himself, well born and bred, and educated 
at Worcester and Hadley, Mass. While Mr. Beecher 
was at Amherst her brother invited him over to spend 
his vacation, and here she met him. 

When Mr. Beecher applied for a life insurance 
policy thirty years ago he was asked the usual ques- 
tion as to the health of his heart. His answer was: 
" Experienced a peculiar feeling about the heart dur- 
ing the days of my courtship." He was not rejected. 

To an unusually acute wit Mrs. Beecher united 
physical and emotional power of rare development. 
Her energetic nature was a needed complement to the 
careless dreaminess of the young preacher, and in all 
his early life she was the spur and director of all his 
affairs. 

When ready to enter upon active ministerial work, 
Mr. Beecher went over to Covington, Kentucky, and 
50 



IN HOOSIERDOM. 51 

preached in the Presbyterian church for several Sun- 
days and expected to form a church and remain ; but a 
call from Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was made and he 
was soon settled there. 

Lawrenceburg was a scanty town of the Miami Val- 
ley, some twenty miles west of Cincinnati, and in the 
State of Indiana. It was not an attractive place in 
those days. The houses were cheap and flimsy of con- 
struction, without yards or gardens, and the population 
was of the kind that has no local attachment and 
merely make a temporary sojourn that shall last so 
long only as enough money can be made to sustain life. 

In writing of the town, Mr. Beecher said: " It 
doesn't occur to me now that Lawrenceburg was re- 
markable for anything but a superabundance of dis- 
tilleries. I used to marvel how so many large distil- 
leries could be put in so small a town. But there 
they were, flourishing right in the very face of the 
gospel that my little flock and I were preaching in the 
shadows of the chimneys. 

" My thoughts often travel back to my quaint little 
church and the big distilleries at Lawrenceburg. 

" The church edifice was a low, broad, plain struc- 
ture, very like the ordinary Quaker meeting house, 
entered from a broad uncovered wooden platform which 
was approached by a flight of wooden steps. 

It would seat one hundred and fifty people. There 



52 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

were twenty members; in his own words, ''Nineteen of 
them were women, and the other was nothing." With 
the exception of two, every one was dependent for her 
livelihood 'on her industry. He and Mrs. Beecher 
lived in two rooms over a stable, and studied economy 
on four hundred dollars a year, of which only two 
hundred and fifty dollars could be relied upon with 
certainty. The balance was supposed to be given in 
provisions by the people of the church. 

Referring to this period, Mr. Beecher observed: 
" I remember the days of our poverty, our straight- 
ness. I was sexton of my own church at that time. 
There were no lamps there, so I bought some ; and I 
rilled them and lit them. I did not ring the bell, 
because there was none to ring. I made the fires and 
swept the building. I opened the church before 
prayer-meeting and preaching, and locked it when 
they were over, in fact, doing everything, but coming 
to hear myself preach — that they had to do. We 
were all poor together, and to the day of my death I 
never shall forget one of those faces or hear one of 
those names spoken without having excited in my 
mind the warmest remembrances. Some of them I 
venerate, and the memory of some has been precious 
as well as fruitful of good to me down to this hour." 

The following is a graphic sketch of his hardships 
during those years: When he needed a house to live 



IN HOOSIEEDOM. 53 

in, lie hauled the logs himself. His neighbors aided 
him to put it up. The whitewash and paint he 
attended to himself. Children followed in quick suc- 
cession, as they did in the family of Dr. Lyman 
Beecher; poor pay, hard work, cheap living, and the 
malarial condition of the section in which he lived, 
broke the strong constitution of his wife, and as they 
were unable to pay a servant, threw on him the domes- 
tic drudgery. He chopped wood, drew the water, 
peeled the potatoes, cooked the food, served it, washed 
the dishes, and cleaned up the house. "When sickness 
necessitated frequent washings of soiled clothes, it was 
he who did the work. Part of the time he did double 
duty, and rode twenty miles through the woods and 
across the prairies to the log schoolhouse in which 
service was held, preached, rode back again, cooked 
the dinner, preached in his own church, returned to 
nurse his sick wife and attend to the children, got the 
supper, and spent the evening in the prayer- meeting. 
At times he was so poor that an unpaid letter, on 
which eighteen or twenty cents were due, remained in 
the postoffice, with news from the East, uncalled for, 
because he did not have the money with which to pay 
the postage. Yet in these days was laid the founda- 
tion of his greatness, for there he learned how to enter 
into the lives of his people, making their cause his 
own, sharing their sorrows as well as their poverty, 



54 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

imbuing his kindly nature with that great charity for 
others that so strongly marked the sympathies of his 
later years. 

In the two years of his Lawrenceburg pastorate 
Mr. Beecher made his mark. As a preacher he was 
eloquent; as an orthodox teacher he was not over 
zealous; as a sympathizing pastor he was of average 
merit only. His meetings were well attended and he 
made himself felt. His personal magnetism was great, 
the flush of vigorous health was in his veins, and he 
stirred up the dry bones of his neighborhood to such 
a degree that the attention of a wider circle was at- 
tracted. 

" The first time I heard Henry Ward Beecher preach," 
writes an ardent admirer, " was when he once occupied 
the pulpit of his father, who was then nearing the close 
of his ministry as pastor of the Second Presbyterian 
Church in Cincinnati, perhaps in the year 1843, forty- 
four years ago. Mr. Beecher was then a settled pas- 
tor over the Presbyterian Church at Lawrenceburg, 
Ind., twenty miles away. As young people sometimes 
do, I left the church when the preacher was through 
his sermon. I had been quite stirred up and enter- 
tained, but was so impressed with the remark of a lame 
elder of the church, who descended the steps and went 
in my direction, up Fourth street, eastward, as I 
passed to my boarding-house, that I have never for- 



IN HOOSIEEDOM. 55 

gotte"n the remark. It was this: " There was a good 
deal more of Henry Ward Beecher in that sermon 
than there was of Christ." This seemed to me thor- 
oughly true, and altogether apposite, and at this dis- 
tance of time I may say that the observation was made 
by a man of great integrity, and uprightness, and intel- 
ligence, too — Isaac G. Burnet, an own brother of 
David G. Burnet, not long after President of Texas, 
and a half-brother of Judge Isaac Burnet, of Cincin- 
nati, a special friend of Dr. Lyman Beecher and family. 
From that hour to the present I have never ceased to 
be interested in Henry Ward Beecher, his doings and 
sayings. I soon after came to know him personally 
and always have held him in the highest regard for 
his warm-heartedness and noble manliness." 

While in Lawrenceburg he narrowly escaped being 
switched off on another and very different track. A 
new railroad was projected and a superintendent was 
to be chosen. A bank president, who was one of the 
chief directors, had been greatly affected by the 
go-ahead manner and zeal of the young parson, and, 
concluding that he was possessed of the qualities that 
would make him a first rate railroad official, proposed 
his name. The contest was close ; Beecher lost by one 
vote, and thus the railroad interest of the West was 
spared the disgrace of pulling from the American 



56 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

platform the man who has done the most to make that 
platform famous. 

Not long since Mr. Beecher declared that for the 
first three years of his ministry he " did not make a 
sinner wink," and he almost made up his mind to 
abandon the pulpit ; but as his field grew larger he had 
more faith, and was persuaded to go on with his work, 
" From that day to this," he added, " I have been in 
hot water." How much he meant by such a statement 
we can in large part only surmise. But enough is 
known of his signally active, aggressive, and tempest- 
uous life to justify the belief that, in spite of his 
notably sunny and optimistic teaching, he has had sore 
need at every step of one fond and immovable soul to 
lean upon for comfort, sympathy, and inspiration, and 
that in his wife he has uniformly found a helper of 
that description. If we could know the whole truth it 
would very likely appear that but for her robust and 
indomitable faith, her power of encouragement, and 
her gift of smoothing rough places he would have fal- 
tered and missed his chance many times when he went 
boldly and grandly forward ; or possibly, but for that 
assistance, he would have given up his appointed 
career, thus depriving the world of the greatest 
preacher of his time. There must have been not a few 
occasions when he was tempted to choose rest and safety 
instead of the strife and peril into which he plunged; 



IN HOOSIERDOM. 57 

and we may be sure that his wife's advice was always a 
potent force on the side of such a conclusion. 

Mr. Beecher's stay at Lawrenceburg was, however, 
brief. A larger field of usefulness opened, after several 
applications in 1839, by a call to Indianapolis, then a 
town of about twenty -five thousand inhabitants. Here 
he lived and labored for eight years, and here his 
influence as a speaker, writer, and thinker began to 
make itself strongly felt. As the son of Lyman 
Beecher he was accorded a courteous welcome, but it 
was not long ere he was esteemed and followed for his 
individual merit. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 

A member of the church brought Mr. Beecher and 
his family to Indianapolis in his own carriage, and on 
the 31st of July, 1839, the first sermon was preached. 
For nearly two years the congregation worshipped in 
the old seminary. It then moved into the building 
now standing at the corner of Circle and Market 
streets — a structure of the ordinary country church 
type, with round columns in front and a square belfry 
rising from the roof in front. The building was long 
since abandoned as a church, and has served success- 
ively as a schoolhouse and a public hall. When Mr. 
Beecher left it the congregation and membership of 
this church was the largest possessed by any church 
in Indianapolis. 

The members of his church were dissenters from 
the First Church, the only organization in the city at 
that time, and which had been violently disturbed by 
the new and old school discussions. Fifteen members 
from the First Church had organized a Second Church, 
one of them being Samuel Merrill, President of the 
State bank. Mr. Beecher was their first pastor. It 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 59 

was Mr. Merrill who had discovered him, being at the 
time on a tour of inspection of the branch banks 
throughout the State. 

His salary was now six hundred dollars per annum, 
but the nominal increase was of no real advantage to 
the young minister and his wife ; for, on the one hand, 




East Hampton Church. 

See page 14. 

their regular expenses were larger, and, on the other, 
he was the city minister, and was expected to entertain 
the country clergymen. 

" I had a more considerable congregation, though I 
was still far from rich in the world's goods." 

His -life at Indianapolis was in two senses of a pas- 



60 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

toral kind. The house he occupied was on the out- 
skirts of the town, and was a one-story dwelling of 
four rooms with a roof sloping to the street and sur- 
rounded by barns and sheds. 

His life was of Arcadian simplicity. He cultivated 
a garden, and gathered around him all that wholesome 
suit of domestic animals for which he had been accus- 
tomed to care in early life. 

He subsequently dwelt in a larger and finer house, 
which he built himself, and the painting of which he 
did with his own hands. 

" I remember very well," he wrote afterwards, " how 
I borrowed a paint-pot and brushes and gave my house 
a fresh coat — it was yellow, I believe." 

Added to the poverty of his pocket, the incessant 
drain of his sympathy at home, the continuous 
necessity of physical toil in the house, the garden 
and the woodshed, and the preparation of his sermons, 
was a doubt, an uncertainty in his beliefs. The 
little cloud, small as a man's hand, that frightened 
him when a boy, made him gloomy when in college and 
shadowed him in his first charge, now assumed vast 
proportions. He was all afloat. All that kept him 
from sinking — humanly speaking — was his own honest 
expression of doubt. Had he kept it to himself and 
brooded over it in secret he might have been car- 
ried over the falls of infidelity or gone to the fool's 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 61 

refuge — suicide. But Beecher was then, as always, 
open mouthed. What he felt, thought or knew he 
told. Secretiveness was never fairly developed in his 
nature. He never could keep a secret. He made 
friends easily, and the last person with him invariably 
knew his mind. He was easily deceived, for, although 
he had constant experience in human strengths and 
human weaknesses, he was by nature confiding and 
trustful. Truthful himself, it was next to impossible 
to persuade him that any would be false in speech or 
inference to him. He knew all about wickedness in 
general, but special cases bothered him. When 
doubts assailed him, instead of taking them to his 
study he used them as illustrations in the pulpit. If 
he questioned the possibility of forgiveness of sin, he 
became the example. It was his breast that he beat, 
his doubt he asserted, his fears he expressed. In pic- 
turing the estate of a lost soul the imagery lost 
nothing of its power by a personal application. En- 
thusiastic in everything, from the culture of a flower 
to the worship of his Savior, Mr. Beecher carried his 
zealous search for remedies in this state of doubt to 
the extremity of his passionate nature. 

Crowds attended his preaching. Waves of reli- 
gious feeling carried all classes of people before them. 
The State of Indiana was in an uproar. The Presby- 
terian churches looked on amazed. Dr. Lyman 



62 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Beeclier thanked God that he had given him such a 
son, and in the same breath he beseeched Him to guide 
him lest he should fall. The Legislature sat in In- 
dianapolis, and in its train followed the evils that gen- 
erally accompany the camp followers. Intemperance, 
gambling and kindred vices were rampant in the place. 
Everybody knew it. The sores affected the entire 
body politic. The members of the Legislature knew 
it as well as the rest, and winked at it like the rest. 
This seemed to Beecher a fair target. He announced 
a series of lectures to young men, and delivered them 
in his church. The feeling engendered by them was 
intense. Those who were hit were indignant. All 
classes went to hear them, and before they were con- 
cluded a revival arose that swept the city. 

A member of his church Avrote of him: "It is not 
improper, however, to speak of the pastor in that re- 
vival as he is remembered by some of the congrega- 
tion, plunging through the wet streets, his trousers 
stuffed in his muddy boot-legs, earnest, untiring, 
swift, with a merry heart, a glowing face, and a help- 
ful word for every one, the whole day preaching 
Christ to the people where he could find them and at 
night preaching still where the people could find him." 

He always preached twice on a Sunday, and in 
various districts of the city held an average of five 
other meetings a week. During three months of 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 63 

every year, by consent of his people, he devoted him- 
self to missionary work throughout the State, making 
the journeys on horseback and preaching at some 
place every day. His fame spread throughout the 
whole country, until finally his arrival in any town 
was sufficient to attract a multitude of people to hear 
him. About the third year of his ministry, a great 
revival of religion took place at Terre Haute, followed 
by a series of revivals elsewhere in the State, in all of 
which Mr. Beecher was unceasingly active. 

The following anecdote illustrates Mr. Beecher' s 
love of humor and drollery. He was naturally cut out 
for a great actor. Once he was returning from Terre 
Haute to this city in a stage coach. Mr. Graydon, a 
prominent member of the congregation, got into the 
coach at Greencastle. It was dark, and after jogging 
along a little way in silence Mr. Beecher disguised his 
voice and began making inquiries of Mr. Graydon as 
to where he lived. When he learned it was at Indian- 
apolis he began to ply his fellow traveler with all 
manner of questions; inquired about Beecher' s church 
and congregation, and finally about Beecher himself. 
Mr. Graydon was loyal, and eulogized Beecher greatly. 
The hoax was discovered at the next stopping place. 

Meantime the uncertainty of young Beecher in- 
creased, and with it grew his power. He was matur- 
ing mentally and physically. His head expanded as 



64 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

he read the books of nature and of humanity all about 
him. He felt the necessity of supplementing his 
sparse education by such means as were at his disposal. 
Books were rare and costly. Newspapers were in their 
infancy. He read all that he could borrow or obtain 
from the public libraries, and felt inexpressible grati- 
tude when the choice volumes of a wealthy friend were 
placed at his service. The West, and especially that 
section of it, was full of quick witted men and grow- 
ing women. Both sought comfort in the preaching of 
this man of the people. Instead of scoffing at their 
doubts he boldly proclaimed his own. This made him 
the friend and spokesman of the wavering, He pictured 
in vivid colors the unhappiness of his thoughts, the 
terror of his fear, and produced in their minds the 
impression that Beecher and they were one and the 
same. When he found relief they participated in his 
joy. When he sang the song of salvation they joined 
in the chorus. He became immensely popular in his 
parish and in the State. He was not the ideal parson. 
He wore no distinctive garb. His face was round and 
jolly. His eye was full of laughter. His manner was 
hearty and his interest sincere. It was often said that 
Beecher could have attained any desired distinction at 
the bar or in politics. He was importuned to stand as 
candidate for legislative honors, but invariably refused 
even to think of it. At this time, when he regarded 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 65 

himself spiritually weak, he was eloquently strong. 
He preached without notes and talked as if inspired. 
His prayers were poems. His illustrations were con- 
stant and always changing. He kept his people wide 
awake and made them feel his earnestness. His acting 
power was marvellous. Those who knew him well will 
remember that when talking he could with difficulty 
sit still. He almost invariably rose, and in the excite- 
ment of description or argument acted the entire sub- 
ject as it struck him, Oftentimes in his most solemn 
moments an illustration or an odd expression would 
escape him that sent a laugh from pew to pew. Wak- 
ing suddenly to the incongruity of the scene and the 
subject, it almost seemed as if the rebuking spirit of 
his dead mother stood before him, for with a manner 
that carried the sympathy of the audience he would 
drift into a channel, tender and deep and full of tears, 
along which the feeling of the people were irresistibly 
borne. There as here the chief topics of his repertory 
were the love of God and the dignity of man. He 
rarely preached from the Old Testament. The thun- 
ders of Sinai and the flames of hell had no power over 
him. It would puzzle an expert to find in all his pub- 
lished sermons — and for more than a generation every 
word he spoke was reported as he spoke it — a sen- 
tence of which threats or fears were the dominant 
spirit. He preached the love of God and the sympa- 



66 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

thy of Christ first, last, and all the time. He knew 
the politicians of the West thoroughly, and the gam- 
blers, who were a powerful fraternity, made up their 
minds that it was folly to interfere with the robust 
preacher, who was not afraid to push their bully aside 
when he stood in front of the ballot box, and who met 
them eye to eye on the street as well as in his pulpit. 
There was then a feeling in the church almost 
throughout the country — which was especially strong 
in Indianapolis — against discussions on slavery from 
the pulpit. Some of Mr. Beecher's most prominent 
parishioners were bitterly opposed to the subject being 
even publicly named by a Christian minister. But he 
emphasized his position by early introducing into the 
synod a resolution declaring that every minister should 
preach a thorough exposition and condemnation of 
shivery. Thereupon, he preached three sermons upon 
the life of Moses, the bondage of the children of Israel 
under Pharaoh and their deliverance. His hearers, 
who had comfortably settled themselves to listen to a 
rebuke of the Old Testament culprits, were electrified 
by a searching and merciless expose of the horrors of 
American slavery and a scathing denunciation of the 
whole institution. There was talk and excitement, of 
course, but Mr. Beecher persisted in openly attacking 
the great wrong, and through his persistence his 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 67 

church became one of the strongholds of the anti- 
slavery cause. 

Mr. Beecher never engaged in controversial strife 
on points of doctrine. Ministers of every denomina- 
tion were welcomed at his home — a cottage on the out- 
skirts of the town — inspected his beloved garden, or 
shared his rides over the rolling prairies. 

There were in Indianapolis, Baptists, Methodists 
and an Episcopal minister, but he stood on kindly 
social terms with them all. His humorous faculty 
gave him a sort of universal coin which passed current 
in all sorts of circles, making every one at ease with 
him. Human nature longs to laugh, and a laugh, as 
Shakespeare says, " done in the testimony of a good 
conscience," will often do more to bring together 
wrangling theologians than a controversy. 

A Methodist brother once said to him : 
' '■' Well, now, really, Brother Beecher, what have you 
against Methodist doctrines?" 

"Nothing, only that your converts will practice 
them." 

"Practice them?" 

" Yes, you preach falling from grace, and your 
converts practice it with a vengeance." 

One morning, as he was sitting at table, word was 
brought in that his friend, the Episcopal minister, was 
at the gate, waiting to borrow his horse. 



68 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Stop, stop," said he, with a face of great gravity, 
" there's something to be attended to first," and, 
rising from the table, he ran out to him and took his 
arm with the air of a man who is about to make a 
serious proposition. 

" Now, Brother G , you want my horse for 

a day. Well, you see, it lies on my mind greatly that 
you don't admit my ordination. I don't think it's 
fair. Now, if you'll admit that I'm a genuinely 
ordained minister, you shall have my horse; but if 
not, I don't know about it." 

Mr. Beecher has always looked back with peculiar 
tenderness to that Western life, in the glow of his 
youthful days, and in that glorious, rich, abundant, 
unworn Western country. The people, simple and 
strong, shrewd as Yankees, and excitable and fervent 
as Southerners, full of quaint images and peculiar 
turns of expression, derived from a recent experience 
of backwoods life, were an open page in his great book 
of human nature. 

"How are you, stranger?" was the usual simple 
salutation, and no one thought of any formal law of 
society; why one human being might not address 
another on equal terms, and speak out his mind on all 
subjects fully. 

In his leisure hours his love for nature found scope 
for enjoyment. He edited a horticultural paper, read 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 69 

books on gardening, farming and stock raising, 
imported and set out roses and fruit trees, and in his 
note books of this period, among hints for sermons, 
come memoranda respecting his favorite Berkshire pig 
or Durham cow. 

"I always had a fondness for journalistic work, 




Beecher's House at East Hampton. 

See page 14. 

especially if it was of an agricultural nature, and found 
it pleasant and remunerative. 

" I suppose, though, that all newspaper work is like 
that. 

" That, at any rate, was my dearest recreation — I 
thoroughly enjoyed it." 



70 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher was for many years a trustee of Wabash 
College, Crawfordsville, Ind. 

It was in the forties — '44 or '45, — that he first 
attracted general public attention as a member of the 
Presbyterian General Assembly in session at Buffalo, 
N. Y. A reporter of the proceedings of that body, 
remembers very well his first appearance on the floor. 
A young man — Mr. Beecher always had a younger 
look than his age would indicate — with ruddy face, 
abundance of hair, glowing eyes, but with attire not up 
to the ministerial pattern, rose in his place, in the back 
part of the house, and the very first words he uttered 
— " Mr. Moderator " — attracted attention. There was 
an important question under consideration — an over- 
ture relating to slavery, as we recollect. He had not 
proceeded far before heads were turned and all eyes 
bent upon the speaker. " Who is that young man," 
was whispered and heard audibly. Scarcely anybody 
knew. But the fervor, enthusiasm, originality, and 
eloquence of his address carried the house with him, 
and Henry Ward Beecher was known after that to the 
representatives of the denomination of the Northern 
states, at least. The reports of his speeches on that 
and subsequent occasions attracted the public attention 
as something new and more vigorous than people had 
been accustomed to in these discussions of the theo- 
logians. Out of the recognition, undoubtedly came 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 71 

his call to Brooklyn which followed within a year or 
two, and which has since been the scene of his life- 
work, so remarkable and productive of such grand 
results for forty years. 

The commencement of the college year brought the 
Presbyterian ministry in large force to Crawf ordsville. 
At an evening party where the two most noted guests 
were Mr. Beecher and United States Senator E. A. 
Hannegan, of Covington, Ind. — the one American the 
other Irish, the latter was noted for intellectual and 
oratorical brilliancy. That the two should drift 
together in the early evening was but natural. Pious 
as the preacher was, and humble follower, he did not 
willingly allow any one in a social gathering to put 
him in a state of eclipse. Never did two contestants 
in a ring, each the darling of his particular friends 
and backers, ever watch each other more closely than 
did the preacher and the politician. 

The former was in his happiest vein of rollicking 
humor. The latter was all sentiment. The two 
seemed for the time to have exchanged places. The 
preacher's coruscations of wit fell swift and thick as 
sparks from a blacksmith's anvil, while the politician, 
in a voice that was melody itself, let fall from his lips 
a very torrent of imagery that fascinated as it fell. 
For two hours those intellectual gladiators carried on 
their wordy contest with no sign of weariness. The 



72 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

hundred others present were crowded in the large par- 
lor or eagerly listening from the adjoining rooms. 
Those two for the time being had wielded a monopoly 
of entertainment, and were thoroughly conscious that 
their display of intellectual pyrotechnics was brilliant 
and all satisfying. It was only when the lady of the 
house, worried into a fever of impatience, laid her hand 
on the preacher's shoulder that he ceased talking. 

"Mr. Beecher, you and Mr. Hannegan must be 
weary after so much argument, and my coffee is 
spoiling!" 

It was a drawn battle and Hannegan arose and tak- 
ing the preacher's hand said: 

" Well, Brother Beecher, you certainly promise to 
achieve fame as a minister of the Gospel, but if you 
had been bred to politics, you would have captured the 
country." 

" And you, Brother Hannegan," replied the preacher, 
" with the grace of God implanted in your heart, and 
a pulpit at your command, would have captured more 
souls for Christ than ever I can hope shall fall to my 
lot!" 

Yet, while in the height of his popularity in the 
West, Mr. Beecher was hampered as few men would 
care to be. He was hungry for books and papers, but 
could not afford them. He had a royal physique and 
every vein throbbed with superabundant health, but 



CALLED TO INDIANAPOLIS. 73 

his liome was a hospital. His ambition was great, but 
he was tied to a stake in a contracted field. He strove 
to live outside of himself, made many pastoral calls, 
talked with men about their business trials and sym- 
pathized with women in their domestic woes. At his 
own home his hands were full. His wife was broken 
in health and discomforted in spirit. She did not like 
the West and the West was unkind to her constitution. 
It was a serious question whether she could much 
longer endure the strain on her physique, and this 
wore on the sympathetic nature of her husband. He 
was entirely unselfish, but the attrition of years of 
complaint worried him. He did the best, all in fact 
he could, but to no use. Finding himself depressed, 
Mr. Beecher resolutely set to work to drive his fits of 
despondency away. He became interested in trees and 
flowers. Aided by friends he started an agricultural 
paper and posted himself from books on floriculture, 
and read the fat and prosy volumes of London. His 
fresh and novel mode of treating these subjects won 
him fame, but not fortune. His own garden gave evi- 
dence of his skill, and the fairs were not niggardly in 
premiums to the amateur gardener. Eight years 
swiftly wore away, and in the often recurring excite- 
ments of revivals, public meetings, home trial and 
personal bewilderments, the young man passed from 
the first period of his career to the second. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 

In the year 1847, Plymouth Church was founded 
by advanced Congregationalists. The Congregation- 
alism of New York and Brooklyn was a modified Pres- 
byterianism. The pastor and standing committee 
stood for the minister and elders in the Presbyterian 
Church that ruled everything. The Plymouth breth- 
ren proposed to have a church in which the laymen 
should come to the front. The preacher was to be 
simply a layman in all church matters, and to-day the 
pastor can not preside at a church business meeting 
unless he is formally elected. For many years the 
pastor was not allowed to conduct the Friday night 
meeting. The church has never belonged to any 
organization, though in fellowship with other churches, 
and it is absolutely as independent as though there was 
not another church in the world. 

May 8, 1847, David Hale, of New York, Ira Paine, 

John T. HoAvard, Charles Rowland, David Griffin and 

Henry C. Bowen met at the house of the latter, 

resolved themselves into an association of trustees of 

the new church, and decided to begin holding services 

at once. 

74 



BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 75 

They had purchased in June, 1846, for $20,000 the 
ground upon which now stands Plymouth Church, and 
which already contained an edifice of worship. They 
had paid outright the sum of $9,500, giving a mort- 
gage for the remainder. The money for this payment 
was furnished by Henry C. Bowen, Seth B. Hunt, 
John T. Howard and David Hale, the first three being 
members of the Church of the Pilgrims. 

A peculiar minister was needed for so peculiar a 
church. Among the many merchants who from time 
to time returned to their New York homes to report 
the singular sayings and Pauline preachings of the 
Western orator, was one who lived in Brooklyn and 
had incidentally learned of these plans. He called 
the attention of Mr. Bowen to the rising young man, 
a son of Lyman Beecher. 

Early in the spring of that year a committee from 
the church organization went to Indianapolis to learn 
something more of the author of the ''Lectures to 
Young Men," copies of which had found their way to 
Brooklyn. 

How Plymouth Church was to hear him was a 
question. The church did not wish to hear him as a 
candidate, and did not wish to call him until they 
knew something of his metal. Bowen urged the Home 
Missionary Society to invite young Beecher to come 
on and preach the annual sermon. The society did 



76 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

not know enough of Henry Ward to invest the 
expenses of his visit. Mr. Bowen offered to be respon- 
sible for the cost, and paid out sixty dollars that the 
church, in this roundabout way, might hear Mr. 
Beecher. 

The invitation was accepted, Mr. Beecher never 
suspecting that during his visit he would be on trial. 

Even then Brooklyn was known as the City of 
Churches, and men of mark in divers denominations 
were drawing audiences to their feet. Among others 
at that time were Dr. Bethune. of the Dutch Beformed 
Church ; Dr. Constantine Pise, of the Roman Catholic 
Church; Dr. R. S. Storrs, Jr., of the Congregational 
Church; Dr. T. L. Cuyler, of the Presbyterian Church, 
and facile prirweps Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox, of the 
First Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest organiza- 
tions in the country. Obviously to bring an untried 
man to a place like Brooklyn was venturesome, to say 
the least. 

Mr. Beecher was, at this time, thirty-four years 
old. Mentally he had become broader and looked 
over wider fields than when he began to labor. Mor- 
ally he was as sincere, as truthful and as ingenuous as 
when he opened Iris big blue eyes with astonishment 
at the Bible stories he heard at "Aunt Esther's " knee. 
Physically he was a picture of vigorous health. He 
stood about five feet eight inches high. His large, 



BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 77 

well-formed, well- developed head sat defiantly on a 
short, red neck, that grew from a sturdy frame, rampant 
and lusty in nerve and fibre and blood and muscle. He 
had no money, owned no real estate. His capital was 
in his brains, and they needed the culture procurable 
in the metropolis alone, where libraries and bookstores, 
art galleries and men or thought were to be met at 
every turn. 

A career in the East was far from Beecher's 
thoughts, and yet his sick wife seemed to need a 
medicament not to be found in the West. 

Mrs. Beecher was overjoyed at the prospect of a trip 
that might benefit her health and enable her to see 
her Eastern relatives and friends, and Mr. Beecher 
was more than glad of anything that would relieve the 
monotony of a sick-room and bring him in contact 
with a side of the world that was as truly Greek to 
him as — well, as Greek itself. With scanty ward- 
robe, old fashioned and rusty at that, the couple 
started Eastward. The difference in their appearance 
may be inferred from a remark made by an old lady 
on the cars. Mr. Beecher had jumped from the train 
to the platform at one of the stations to get " Ma," as 
he always called his wife, a sandwich. "Ma" sat 
gloomy and sad-faced, and attracted the attention of 
the old lady, who approached her and said, sympa- 
thizingly, " Cheer up, my dear madam, cheer up. 



78 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Surely, whatever may be your trial, you have cause for 
great thankfulness to God, who has given you such a 
kind and attentive son." 

That settled Mrs. Beecher for the remainder of 
the journey, and made her cup of misery more than 
full. However, though the lady knew it not, she was 
rapidly nearing the haven in which she was to find a 
glowing welcome, reinvigoration of mind and body 
and an anchorage of safety for life. Mr. Beecher 
was a success froin the moment he opened his lips in 
the Broadway Tabernacle. In those days "Anniversary 
AVeek" was an institution. The great men of the 
nation spoke from their platforms. The evangelical 
expeditions against the heathen, intemperance and 
slavery were organized, equipped and started then 
and there. Each year the respective advocates re- 
turned with their reports. The Tabernacle was 
always crowded, and some of the best thoughts of the 
churches' best men were uttered in speeches from that 
pulpit. Henry Ward Beecher, per se, was unknown ; 
but his father and his elder brother and sister were 
known to every one at all familiar with affairs. Con- 
sequently, when the sturdy son of Lyman Beecher rose 
to speak he was greeted by a friendly audience, and 
soon found himself at home, although his garb was 
not in accordance with the fashionable cut of his 
hearers. 



BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 79 




Beecher's House at Litchfield. 
See page 19. 

On May 16, he attended the dedication of Plymouth 
Church, but was as innocent as a lamb of any knowl- 
edge that he was ever to become part and parcel of it. 
He felt hampered here. His heart was in the West, 
and he longed to be home again. He was invited to 
remain and preach a few Sundays. That meant $25 
and a welcome each week in the house of one of the 
churchmen. The health of Mrs. Beecher seemed to 
improve, and her husband reluctantly consented to con- 
tinue awhile. 

Twenty-one persons united in the formation of the 
new Plymouth Church, and on June 13 the church was 
publicly organized, the Rev Eichard S. Storrs preach- 
ing the sermon for the occasion. 



80 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher took part in the ceremonies, and made 
so deep an impression upon the members of the new 
church that they unanimously decided to " call " him. 
They offered him $1,500 per year. The amount was at 
that time a princely salary in his eyes, and he at once 
accepted. 

An amusing theological examination preceded his 
installation. " Do you believe in the Perseverance of 
the Saints?" asked Dr. Humphrey. "I was brought 
up to believe that doctrine," replied Mr. Beecher, 
" and I did believe it until I went out West and saw 
how Eastern Christians lived when they went out there. 
I confess since then I have had my doubts." 

The council that assembled to examine the young 
candidate soon found that their task was no ordinary 
one. They asked the set and formulated questions, 
but received very strange and unexpected answers. 
On the broad ground of God's supremacy and man's 
responsibility they found him sound, but he seemed to 
put more faith in the love of Christ, in the doctrine of 
charity and in the oneness of the Father and His chil- 
dren than in the time-honored dogmas and doctrines 
of the churches. The wise heads doubted, and for a 
while it was by no means certain that they would take 
the responsibility of seating him in the pulpit. They 
might have saved themselves their trouble. If every 
man of them had voted " no " it would have made no 



BEECHEll AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 81 

difference. Then as now, then, as through the dark 
days of outspoken abolitionism, then, as in the perilous 
period of the war for the Union, then, as in the sicken- 
ing scandal, Plymouth Church believed in Henry Ward 
Beecher first, last and all the time. He was adopted 
and settled in spite of the protest of his venerable 
father. 

" Don't, I beseech of you," he wrote to Mr. 
Howard, " don't induce Henry to leave the "West. He 
has a great field here, and is brought in contact with 
men of influence and all the members of the Legisla- 
ture. He will be buried in the East." There is no 
doubt that the son shared the father's apprehension. 

" I came East," he said, " with a silken noose about 
my neck and did not know it." 

That the benefit his wife would derive from a resi- 
dence here was a great point with Mr. Beecher is well 
known to his friends. He felt that she had been over- 
tasked in all her early married life, and desired that 
she should now begin to enjoy the advantages of civil- 
ization. At all events, he sold out his few effects and 
came to Brooklyn. 

His wardrobe was in a sad condition and that of 
his wife was worse. His hat was shockingly bad, his 
coat seedy and his pants darned; his boots and his 
shirts equally out of repair. Mr. Bowen purchased 
for him an entire outfit; purchased the cloth and 
6 



82 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

had a suit of clothes made up so that the pastor of 
Plymouth Church could be presentable on Sunday. 

The new pastor wore his hair long, no beard was 
permitted to grow, a wide Byron collar was turned 
over a black silk stock and his clothes were of conven- 
tional cut. His hair was thick and heavy. His eyes 
were large and very blue. His nose was straight, full 
and prominent. His mouth formed a perfect bow, 
and when the well developed lips parted they disclosed 
regular, well set teeth. There was nothing clerical in 
his face, figure, dress or bearing. He was more like 
a street evangel — a man talking to men and standing 
on a common level. 

At the first services on Oct. 10 the church in the 
morning was about three-quarters full ; in the evening 
it was completely full, and in a short space of time the 
edifice was found to be inadequate to the constantly 
increasing congregation. 

The first thing he insisted on was congregational 
singing. The organ was not a very fine instrument, 
but it did its duty, and a large volunteer choir led the 
singing — at first. At first, but after awhile the con- 
gregation was the choir and the organ, the leader. 
Mr. Beecher had the pulpit cut away and on the plat- 
form placed a reading desk. In this way he was 
plainly visible from crown to toe, and whether preach- 
ing or sitting, every motion was in full view of the 



BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 83 

crowded assemblage. Instead of resting a pale fore- 
head on a pallid hand and closing his eyes as if in 
silent prayer while his people sang, Mr. Beecher held 
his book in his red fist and sang with all his might. 
Although not a finished singer, he had a melodious 
bass voice, and he sang with understanding. As he 
did so his eyes would take in the scene before him, 
and it needed no wizard's skill to detect its power over 
him. Ever impressible and as full of intuition as a 
woman, he felt the presence of men and women. Time 
and again the tenor of his discourse was altered at the 
sight of a face. Incidents of the moment often shaped 
the discourse of the hour. He laid great stress on the 
influence of congregational singing. It brought the 
audience to a common feeling. It made them appreci- 
ate that they were not only in the house of worship, 
but that they were there as worshippers, part of their 
duty being to sing praises to the Most High. 

His prayers, too, attracted great attention. The 
keenest eye, the most sensitive ear never detected an 
approach to irreverence in Mr. Beecher' s manner in 
prayer. He prayed, it is true, as a respectful son 
would petition a loving and indulgent father. It was 
noticed that he addressed his prayers very largely to 
the Saviour. In his sermons it was the love of Christ 
on which he dwelt. It seemed as if he delighted to 
put away all thought of the Judge, and to keep always 



84: ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

present the tenderness of the Father and the affection 
of the Elder Brother. The little church was always 
overcrowded. Hundreds applied in vain for seats. It 
became the fashion to "go to hear Beecher." Thous- 
ands went to criticise and ridicule. Thousands went 
in simple curiosity. It was soon the affectation to 
look down upon him. He was called boorish, illiterate, 
ungraminatical, uncultivated, fit for the common peo- 
ple only and a temporary rushlight. Dr. Cox, an old 
friend of Lyman Beecher, to whom the new comer ex- 
pected to turn for advice as to a father, said, 

" I will give that young man six months in which 
to run out." 

After a few months the church took fire from a 
defective flue, and, although not entirely destroyed, was 
badly damaged, and the trustees concluded to pull it 
down and build anew. Meantime they put up an 
immense temporary structure on Pierrepont street, 
near Fulton, which they called the Tabernacle. There, 
every Sunday, immense crowds of strangers and visi- 
tors from other parishes assembled to listen to Mr. 
Beecher. Already the journals had discovered the 
pith of the preacher and made him noted in the land. 
His utterances were never commonplace, his manner 
was always fresh, his illustrations ever new. He 
never avoided issues. Indeed, it was charged that he 
was sensational because he talked and taught about 



BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 85 

the topics of the hour. He rarely preached a doctri- 
nal sermon, and when he did there was a kind of 
explanatory protest with it, as much as to say, " I 
don't really believe I know anything about this, but it 
can't do any harm." At first he dealt largely in prac- 
tical lessons to the young men who formed a large 
part of his congregations. It was often remarked that 
while the proportion in other churches was five women 
to one man, in the Tabernacle, and later in Plymouth 
Church, the proportion was reversed. This is 
accounted for by two facts — young men, clerks, stu- 
dents and those who lived in boarding houses felt at 
home in that church, and the hotels of New York sent 
over hundreds every Sunday, who considered hearing 
" Beecher preach " one of the essentials of their busi- 
ness in New York. At all events there they were, and 
Mr. Beecher made it a rule of his lifework to address 
himself to them. He never bombarded the Jews, he 
left the heathen to their normal guardians, he avoided 
a decision of questions raised in the Garden of Eden, 
and left the sheep and the goats of ancient history to 
follow the call of their shepherd. His flock was before 
him. His duty was to care for the men and women 
who sat in the pews of his church and thronged its 
aisles and packed its galleries. He was human and 
avowed his love for man. Their weaknesses were 



86 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

his, and lie called on them to seek a common physi- 
cian. 

The clergyman of fashion*was pale and fragile; he 
of the people was florid and muscular. He had no at- 
tendant to remove his hat and cloak. He had no com- 
fortable study in the church building where he 
smoothed his hair and arranged his cuffs. He de- 
claimed before no full length mirror, and never wore 
a pair of patent leathers in his life. When he 
ascended the platform, threading his way through the 
men and women on the steps and patting the curly 
hair of boys perched on the ledge, he slung his soft 
felt hat under a little table, put one leg over the other 
while he removed his rubber, threw back his cloak, 
settled himself in his chair and gave a sigh of relief 
as he drew a restful breath after his quick walk from 
home. In other words, he was a man bent on man's 
duty. If the air seemed close he said so, called an 
usher and had the windows lowered. If he desired a 
special tune sung to the hymn he gave out, he turned 
to the director and told him so. If he forgot a date 
or a name, he asked one of the people near him 
what it was. If strangers sitting close to the plat- 
form were unprovided with hymn books, he leaned for- 
ward and handed them several from his desk. As he 
said, "I am at home; they are our guests. "What is 



BEECHER AND EARLY BROOKLYN. 87 

proper in my house is eminently proper in the house 
of the Lord." 

The practice of adorning the pulpit with flowers, 
now generally adopted, was one of Mr. Beecher's 
ideas, and was followed at all seasons, when these 
beautiful productions of nature and the God of Nature 
could possibly be brought and placed on the altar. 



CHAPTEK VIII 

PERSONALITY SANS PAESONALITY. 

When Mr. Beecher came to Brooklyn forty years 
ago, all of the City of Churches lay within a mile of 
Fulton Ferry; boys picked blackberries from hedge- 
rows within a quarter of a mile of the present City 
Hall; all of Brooklyn Heights, now covered with 
costly residences, was a grassy bluff, and the great flat 
below the heights, now crowded with great ware- 
houses, was occupied principally with sheds, in which 
were stored what to the juvenile eye seemed millions 
of barrels of tar, pitch and other unsightly items in- 
cluded under the general head " naval stores." 

Then, as now. the busiest part of the city was in 
Fulton and other streets very near the City Hall, but 
not all the business was done indoors. The leisurely, 
rural style showed forth in the country village habit 
of the forefathers of the hamlet (and all the town 
loafers beside), sitting on barrels, boxes and bales in 
front of stores and shops to talk business, politics, 
theology and gossip. 

Mr. Beecher' s ways were quite like those of his 
new parishioners and neighbors, and many a time was 
88 



PERSONALITY SANS PARSONALITY. 89 




Hanover Church, Boston. 



he a member of such a group. He never seemed to 
have any faculty or inclination as a proselyte, but he 
seemed determined to know all he could of the town's 
people and their doings — this purpose he afterward 
admitted in conversation. 

In those days nearly all the men wno gathered to 
chat chewed tobacco vigorously as they swung their 
legs and whittled splinters split from the sides of 
boxes. Beecher did not use the weed, but he had a 
habit that to some good people seemed still more un- 
dignified — he ate peanuts, and as a distributor of 



90 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

shells of these esculent tubers he could equal any 
newsboy. 

At first the natives regarded with a watchful, half- 
suspicious manner the new-comer who Avas drawing 
such large congregations every Sunday. As soon as 
he arrived there would be a sudden change of manner, 
such as usually occurs when a clergyman drops upon a 
party of men engaged in general chat; but those who 
expected or feared that a sanctimonious turn would be 
given to the conversation were always disappointed, 
for the young preacher talked only as a public-spirited 
citizen, and he gave many a man more insight into 
points and purposes in architecture than they ever had 
before. Among the men with whom he talked most 
frequently were an undertaker, a grain merchant, a 
grocer, an old English tavern-keeper, and an Irish cart- 
man. Not one of these belonged to his church, either 
then or after ; indeed, none of them were members of 
the same denomination with him, and as denomina- 
tional feeling was far more intense then than it is now, 
it was amusing to observe their efforts to occasionally 
work doctrinal points into conversation and see Beecher 
dodge the subject. These men — all but one are now 
dead — afterward became his enthusiastic friends, after 
which they admitted that he strengthened their own 
faith by the ardor with which he clung to the great es- 
sentials on which all professing Christians agree, and 



PERSONALITY SANS PAESONALITY. 91 

all of them have told, again and again, of how they de- 
pended upon him to help them when they were striv- 
ing to reclaim some poor estray from their own spirit- 
ual fold. Said the Irish cartman one day: "That's 
a quare man, is Mr. Beecher. When I tell him of a 
friend of mine that's doin' wrong he niver tells me to 
sind him to his church ; he tells me to thry to coax him 
to go to confession." 

When in later years Mr. Beecher' s great trial came 
upon him, from no class did he receive more numerous 
and hearty letters of sympathy and encouragement 
than from Catholic priests. 

Another thing that endeared Beecher to the people 
of Brooklyn was the immense fund of general and 
practical information which was always at the service 
of everybody. He could tell a man what to do for a 
cold in the head, or a smoky chimney, or a bad boy, or 
a sick horse, or a sterile fruit tree — for there were 
fruit trees in Brooklyn in those days ; he always had a 
piece of thick string in his pocket with which to help 
a man mend a harness that broke on the road ; he gave 
villagers points on raising chickens, knew what were 
the best varieties of vegetable seeds, and knew more 
about nursing sick folks than half the doctors in town. 
Few of the present generation knows that Brooklyn 
once had a big fire, but it did; about half the build- 
ings on Fulton street, between the river and the City 



92 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Hall, were burned in 1849, and the town was very 
gloomy about it, but Beeclier went about with a heart 
full of hope that found its way to his lips, and did an 
immense deal toward reviving public spirit and confi- 
dence. 

It has been said that Mr. Beeclier was coarse and 
vulgar, and that he had no appreciation of the delica- 
cies of life or the proprieties of place. It would be a 
waste of time to multiply instances of proof to the con- 
trary. He was cheerful and robust, and in some sense 
awkward, but he was innately gentle and sensitive to a 
degree. A remark may illustrate the feeling he had 
about the conduct of service. In 1878 a friend was 
narrating an awkward mishap that attended a baptism, 
and Mr. Beeclier said: "Well, in all my ministry, I 
have never had the slightest accident of that kind. I 
have never spilled a drop of wine nor dropped a piece 
of bread. The only approach to a contretemps that I 
recall was when I miscalculated the distance in sitting 
down on a newly upholstered chair. I expected to go 
down several inches further than I did, and the sudden 
bump I received startled me and sent the blood in tor- 
rents to my cheeks. It was with the greatest difficulty 
I refrained from laughing outright. If I had caught 
a contagious eye anywhere I certainly should have 
roared." 

That he was a great mimic and a natural panto- 



PERSONALITY SANS PAESONALITY. 93 

mimist is well known. When he described a long faced 
hypocrite he saw him and unconsciously pictured him. 
If he pictured the love of Christ and His tenderness 
to the broken ones of life, he felt the love and tender- 
ness, and unconsciously portrayed them in manner and 
gesture. Satire and ridicule were weapons always 
ready to his hand. In those days, people hidebound in 
prejudice could not understand that a preacher was 
right in using all his powers in the service of his Mas- 
ter, so they inveighed against Beecher, pronounced him 
a mountebank and left him to die an easy death. 

He continued, however, and a great revival occurred. 
It grieved Mr. Beecher greatly that some of the clergy 
of Brooklyn allowed their prejudice to outweigh their 
love for their fellows; but accepting the bitter with 
the sweet, he kept on. His Tabernacle was too small 
for the crowds. His congregation included families 
that stood high in social circles, merchants of the first 
repute, judges and literary men of renown, but, chief 
of all, an army of young men who, like himself, were 
bearing the burden and the heat of the day. Professor 
Phinney took him by the hand and worked with him 
for weeks. Morning meetings were held and the entire 
city was filled with religious enthusiasm. Gradually 
the personal habits of Mr. Beecher changed. He was 
always a great walker. He wandered along the river 
front. He visited studios and read about painters and 



94 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHER. 

their art. He was proficient in pottery and knew the 
varieties, and where and how they were made. Arbori- 
culture and horticulture and agriculture were special- 
ties with him. He was known in the great foundries 
of this city as a searcher into affairs. He visited ship- 
yards, and with one of his dearest friends, who was 
building steamers for several years, he studied the art 
of shipbuilding. He was versed in the lore of the 
pole and line. He had rare fowling pieces and the 
most fanciful facilities for field and river sports. That 
his people benefited by this habit let his illustrations 
attest. From birds and flowers and all manner of 
mechanics, from industries of every name and nature, 
he drew pictures, arguments and convincing assertions 
in analogy that clinched the nail of his discourse 
already driven home by the power of his eloquence. 

In about one year and a half after the arrival of 
Mr. Beecher the corner-stone of the present structure 
was laid. In January of the following year (1850) it 
was opened for worship. 

When the new church was built it faced on Orange 
street, where the old lecture room stood. On Cran- 
berry street a supplemental building was erected; on 
its ground floor the lecture room, on the next the Sun- 
day school rooms and what one then called the Social 
Circle parlors. Forgetting that Brooklyn was not ex- 
actly a rural township Mr, Beecher was pained to 



PERSONALITY SANS PARSONALITY. 95 

observe that while Mr. A. knew Mr. B. Mrs. A. had 
not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. B. and that while in 
the church every one was a " dear brother or sister," 
out of the church such social distinctions existed as 
utterly precluded any real Christian feeling. This he 
thought was all wrong and subversive of genuine 
brotherly love. 

So he resolved to change it. 

Without much consultation he announced on Sun- 
day that on a specified evening the parlors would be 
thrown open, and all the people were invited to appear 
and make each other's acquaintance. He said he and 
his family would be there, and he thought it high time 
that the brethren and sisters of his church knew a lit- 
tle something of each other. 

The Social Circle assembled. A few of the old 
families of Brooklyn responded because they wished 
to please their pastor, but the attendance was mainly 
such persons as had everything to gain and nothing 
to give in return. Young men and young women went 
for fun and had it, but the attempt was Quixotic and 
the scheme impracticable. Oil and water in a tumbler 
would mix sooner than social elements in a metropol- 
itan city. It was entirely proper in theory, but it 
didn't work in practice, and Mr. Beecher was compelled 
to abandon the idea. 

Success, however, attended him on every other line. 



96 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

His pews were rented at liigh rates, his regular con- 
gregation was large and respectable, his church mem- 
bership grew rapidly and the influx of strangers was 
so great and so constantly increasing that their accom- 
modation was an utter impossibility. The liberality 
of the Plymouth pastor was a sore point with his 
critics. He always contended for his right to beliefs 
of his own, and as vigorously defended the right of 
others to beliefs of their own. His church member- 
ship soon became eclectic. Presbyterians and Congre- 
gationalists were not so far apart that their union 
caused remark, but presently a few Baptists joined the 
church. Mr. Beecher said, " You must believe and be 
baptized and it's for you to determine how you will be 
baptized. I am content with any symbol, however 
slight, but if you prefer to be immersed and we have 
the conveniences for it, it's your faith, not mine." In 
other words, the fact was essential in his mind; the 
form was of no consequence. A baptistry was built 
beneath the pulpit platform, and he often immersed 
those who desired to be baptized that way. Sweden- 
borgians, Spiritualists and even Quaker and Episcopa- 
lians joined the communion of Plymouth Church 
Indeed, one of the pleasantest features in Mr. Beecher's 
experience was the favor he found with clergymen of 
other denominations. Father Pise, the learned and 
devout Constantine Pise, for many years the loved and 



PERSONALITY SANS PAESONALITY. 



97 



honored pastor of the Catholic Church of St. Charles 
Borromeo, in Sydney place, Brooklyn, was a warm 
friend and admirer of Mr. Beecher, and many of the 
Episcopal, Baptist and Methodist clergy were bound to 
his heart with ties of love and tender sympathy. 

His ministry did much to soften intolerance and 
promote brotherly love and charity. Not indifferent 
to creeds, he urged the higher value of a theology 




Beecher's Home, Walnut Hills, Cincinnati. 

See page 45. 



98 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

based on the moral uses of the Bible as a practical 
book, and a belief in the direct inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit in noble aims and endeavors. His intuitive 
grasp of subjects and his marvelous fluency of thought 
and force of expression gave him power over the intel- 
ligence of men, as his deep humanity, tenderness, 
sympathy, ruled their affections. He was veritably a 
hope-bringer. 

His theology grew into the religion of love, of 
benevolence, of infinite goodness, putting away the 
idea of an implacable judge, the theory of endless tor- 
ture. This spirit "was the guiding influence of his life 
and of his work, and this it was made him one of the 
most manly of zealous anti- slavery teachers, and 
taught him to regard that institution not only as a 
political evil but as a moral wrong, a deep sin against 
humanity. He was enabled thereby to stand firmly 
and bravely against the opposition of prejudice and 
the strong force of ^custom and though he lived to 
triumph in the cause, it was not to glorify his own 
acts but to rejoice in the inflow of Christian light. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 

People who did not know, thirty or forty years ago, 
where to class Mr. Beecher as a theologian, had no 
difficulty in fixing his status in political agitation. At 
a time when many of the foremost preachers and 
teachers and leaders of the country were hesitating 
over the fugitive slave law Mr. Beecher was saying, 
" When we have ceased to pray — when we have rooted 
out the humanities, which since our connection with 
the gospel have been growing within us ; when we 
have burned our Bible and renounced our God — then 
we will join with those whose patriotism exhibits 
itself in disrobing men of every natural right, and in 
driving them from light and religion into gross 
heathenism." 

While he was becoming the greatest preacher of 
his time he was, says John G. Whittier, "As a life- 
long friend of freedom, gaining what Milton calls ' a 
freehold of rejoicing to him and his heirs' in the 
emancipation of the slave." 

When this influential manhood began, our Nation 
was divided into two very hostile sections. The 



100 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

South had become so alarmed regarding its peculiar 
property that a Northern man, having a known love of 
liberty, did not dare travel in the South. The North- 
ern merchants were so anxious to retain the cotton and 
sugar trade of the South that they all frowned upon 
any politics which numbered freedom among its ideals, 
and they would mob or burn a church which contained 
the disciples of a Christian liberty and equality. The 
students in Dartmouth College mobbed free-soil speak- 
ers; the President sympathized with the students. 
Churches, schoolhouses, asylums, and homes of colored 
people in the North were burned to check the spread 
of hope among the Africans in the South. Twelve 
buildings were burned in New York, one large church 
and many homes in Cincinnati, forty houses and two 
churches in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Hall, built 
for anti-slavery meetings, was burned down, along 
with its valuable library, while Mayor and Council 
offered no protection and no word of sympathy. White 
men were imprisoned in Boston for preaching aboli- 
tionism. In 1837 a slave had been burned to death 
over a slow fire in St. Louis, and for denouncing such 
atrocity the Kev. Elijah Lovejoy of this State was 
mobbed to death. 

It was in such days, reaching from 1830 to 1860, 
the hot oratory of Mr. Beecher was fabricated, like 
the bolts of Jupiter in the infernal shop of Vulcan. 



POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 101 

Thence came also the equipment of Dr. Cheever, Phil- 
lips, Parker, and Sumner. The age sharpened their 
speech, condensed their style, and poured in the hero- 
ism and passion which make martyrs. Of all these 
men Mr. Beecher was the most visible, because his 
pulpit brought him each week before the people. His 
logic, his simple style, his illustrations, his pathos, his 
hope, made his words fly straight as arrows to the 
heart. This vast plea for universal freedom was well 
sustained for twenty years, and beginning in our West 
it reached its zenith in England, when, in 1863, he 
had to teach the horrors of slavery to the nation which 
had produced Cowper and Wilberforce, but had for- 
gotten ,them. He embodied the new genius of the 
United States. He had lived in 1840 the life our 
Nation reached thirty years afterward. Boston rail- 
ways built a mean, plain car for negroes to ride in. 
It was called the "Jim Crow" car. Charles Lennox 
Redmond, an educated colored man, entertained in 
England by persons of rank and fame, and commis- 
sioned by O'Connell and Father Mathew to bear 
greetings from liberty in England to liberty in 
America, found, on going from Boston to Salem, his 
home, that he must not take the good car, but must 
ride in the "Jim Crow" car. In such a time Mr. 
Beecher began to ask the colored men to sit on his 
platform in his church, and thus the "negro car" was 



102 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

met in equity by the refuge of the greatest pulpit the 
world possessed. In 1835, while Mr. Beecher was 
looking out of his soul-window with his powerful vis- 
ion and tender nature, he saw in the Charleston 
Courier a notice of a public sale of slaves to satisfy a 
mortgage held by the Presbyterian Theological Semi- 
nary of South Carolina. He read, also, that the estate 
of the Rev. Dr. Furman was to be sold at auction — 
" the farm, a large theological library, twenty-seven 
negroes (some of them very prime), two mules, one 
horse and an old wagon." In those days the Episco- 
pal Bishop of Virginia, Dr. Meade, had published 
some sermons to slaves. One great thought was that 
they must bear well correction, and even if corrected 
when not guilty of the offense, they must bear the 
flogging in meekness, and assign the whipping to 
some other transgression which had been concealed 
from their masters in the Lord. 

It was high time for religion to reach out its hand 
to the slave. 

Mr. Beecher at once announced his determination 
to preach in the Plymouth pulpit Christ as an absolute 
system of doctrine, by which the ways and usages of 
society should be judged, and further gave notice that 
he regarded temperance and anti-slavery principles as 
a part of that gospel. 

There was no need for him to wait in order to prove 



POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 103 

his words by his deeds, for the storm burst almost im- 
mediately. In the North were irresolution, weakness, 
and a desire for peace at any cost save the disintegra- 
tion of the Union. But Mr. Beecher's fighting-blood 
was up, and he threw himself into the thick of the con- 
flict on coming to Brooklyn. 

"Wide as was the platform of Plymouth Church a 
wider plane was now preparing for Mr. Beecher. In 
the early days of anti-slavery agitation he sounded the 
bugle call of danger to the Union in the West. When 
he came East and began to teach man how to live, 
rather than how to die, he stirred up several hornets' 
nests. He enraged the dead-and-alive clergy because 
his methods were a virtual rebuke of their laziness, 
and he angered the mercantile community because he 
hurt their trade, while the politicians, who had for years 
endeavored to smother the sin of the century, were 
maddened at the idea of a mere minister's daring to 
arouse the nation from a stupor and indifference. As 
he went on the agitation increased. 

The excitement caused by the fugitive slave law and 
Webster's seventh of March speech brought him for- 
ward into the arena of practical work. From the pul- 
pit he went into the lecture field, and visited various 
parts of New York and the New England States. 

"Beecher developed from a local into a national 
character," said Thomas G. Shearman, " in the year 



104 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

1850. The slavery question was causing great excite- 
ment, and Clay had proposed his compromise, while 
Calhoun, on the part of the South, was strongly oppos- 
ing all compromise. So also was the Northern anti- 
slavery party, and it was just at this time that Mr. 
Beecher became decidedly famous. The Journal of 
Commerce had published an article threatening that 
the clergymen that meddled with slavery would have 
their coats rolled in the dirt. That aroused all the 
spirit that was in Beecher. He challenged the editor 
of that paper to a debate in the newspapers, which was 
carried on for some time, Beecher writing in the Inde- 
pendent, which Avas at that time edited by Dr. Storrs 
and Dr. Leonard Bacon, under the famous star (*) sig- 
nature." 

His articles were so felicitous and effective that 
they attracted universal attention, and John C. Calhoun 
had them read to him aloud while on his death-bed, 
and pronounced them the ablest articles on the subject 
ever written, saying repeatedly, " That man under- 
stands the subject. He has the true idea." Of course 
he did not mean to approve Beecher's views on slavery, 
but that he heartily approved of his argument that it 
was impossible to compromise the question. This oc- 
currence was published soon afterward in a very 
graphic manner by Calhoun's private secretary, and it 
gave Beecher a really national reputation, making him 



POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 105 

known as well in the South as he had been in the 
North. 

When Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was 
published, in 1852, Henry Ward Beecher had become 
so well known that thousands of people in the country 
were foolish enough to believe that he had written the 
book for her. On the other hand, Mrs. Stowe's name 
became so familiar in England that for many years, 
when the English papers spoke of Mr. Beecher, they 
were accustomed to mention him as Mr. Beecher Stowe, 

Garrison and Phillips and Wade welcomed this 
zealous champion to their ranks, and he assumed the 
lead — where McGregor sat was the head of the table. 

At the anniversaries Beecher was the popular 
speaker. In his own church he never allowed the fire 
of hostility to die out. The dignity of man was his 
constant topic. Man, as made in the image of his 
Maker, was sold as a chattel — that was his never dying 
grievance, day in and day out; year after year he rang 
the changes on the glory of manhood and the degrada- 
tion of slavery until the abolitionists became a party 
to be feared and dreaded. When the mob said that 
Wendell Phillips should not speak in Brooklyn Mr. 
Beecher said, "He shall, and Plymouth Church is 
open to him." In the midst of his usefulness he fell 
ill and for weeks hovered between life and death. His 
strong constitution pulled him through, and his people 



106 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

breathed again. He resumed his teaching, and Har- 
per's Weekly, then a strong pro-slavery journal, pub- 
lished a page illustration of Beecher refusing the 
communion wine to Washington because he was a slave- 
holder. He was denounced, lampooned, and vilified. 
His doorsteps were smeared with tar and filth, and 
scurrilous communications came daily by mail. 

For all this he cared nothing. 

His heart was in the fight, and believing he was 
right he was bound to win or die. It was about the 
time Mr. Beecher first began to deliver set lectures 
out of town for $50 and his expenses that Charles 
Sumner was knocked in the head in the Senate Cham- 
ber by Brooks, of South Carolina. The entire North 
was fired with indignation, and the solid merchants of 
New York thought that was going too far. A mass 
meeting of protest was called in the Tabernacle, and in 
order to make it significant no one was invited to 
speak who had ever countenanced the anti-slavery 
movement. It was entirely in the hands of conserva- 
tives. The chief speakers, resolution readers and 
fluglemen were Daniel D. Lord, John Van Buren and 
William M. Evarts. The Tabernacle was packed with 
an earnest, enthusiastic audience, which, in point of 
numbers and respectability, culture and influence, has 
rarely been surpassed. For some reason Mr. Beecher, 
who had been advertised to lecture in Philadelphia 



POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 107 

that evening, was in the city. He had dined with his 
his friend Mr. Howard, and together they went to the 
Tabernacle to hear the speaking. As the meeting was 
about to be closed some one in the audience called out 
" Beecher." The people took up the cry and 
" Beecher, Beecher " resounded through the church. 
Mr. Evarts, evidently annoyed, advanced to the front 
of the platform and said, " The programme of the 
evening is concluded and the meeting will adjourn. 
(A voice — "Beecher!") Mr. Beecher, I am told, is 
lecturing in Philadelphia this evening." "No, he 
isn't," called out one of the reporters; "there he is 
behind the pillar." The greater part of the audience 
had risen and prepared to leave. Beecher was recog- 
nized and half led, half forced to the platform from 
which Mr. Evarts and his friends precipitately retired. 
John Van Buren, with the instinct of a gentleman, ad- 
vanced, took Mr. Beecher by the hand and led him to 
the speaker's place. The audience reseated them- 
selves, but for fully five minutes the house was in an 
uproar of enthusiastic greeting. With a wave of his 
hand Mr. Beecher secured silence and attention. For 
an hour he delivered the speech of his life. Every 
eye glistened. Such applause was never given before. 
The occasion was an inspiration. The opportunity 
was one he had never had before. But it is doubtful 
that he thought of either one or the other. He had 



108 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

the scene in the Senate Chamber in his eye. It was 
the culminating outrage in a series of horrors. He 
felt it. He foresaw its end. He made that audience 
feel what he felt and see what he saw, and when he 
closed he glowed like furnace, while the people cheered 
with their throats full of tears. Such scenes occur 
once in a lifetime. The next day's papers reported 
Beecher verbatim and gave the others what they could 
find space for. * 

From that time on the printed and spoken utter- 
ances of Henry Ward Beecher were taken as the key- 
note of the great campaign against slavery and its 
extension into the free Territories of the Northwest. 
Some of his people objected strenuously to their pas- 
tor's course. They thought it lowered the pulpit and 
brought religion and politics to a common level. Mr. 
Beecher met their objections good humoredly but seri- 
ously. That any man worthy the name could contem- 
plate the slavery of his fellow and seriously defend an 
institution whose corner-stone was the defilement of 
the image of God seemed to him an abasement of 
human intelligence. " Tell me," he said, " that you 
mean to hold on to slavery because it is profitable or 
because you love power and I will respect at least your 
truth, but if you attempt to justify your infamy by 
scriptural quotations or specious arguments about 
rights I spew you from my friendship." The " silver- 




Dk. Lyman Beechek. 



POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. Ill 

gray " merchants who demurred at his constant agita- 
tion of this subject and who affected to regard him as 
a mountebank he bombarded without mercy. They 
were rich and in positions of influence, therefore they 
were the more dangerous and he spared nothing that 
would convict them of treachery to the Master whose 
children and servants they professed to be. 

Finally, after years of agitation, from the labors of 
the little coterie was born the republican party. Mr. 
Beecher was one of its few fathers and tended it care- 
fully from its birth. When John C. Fremont was 
nominated as Presidential candidate he took great 
interest in the campaign and addressed great audiences 
in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. He 
was then forty-three years old and in perfect health. 
With the exception of several months in 1849, when he 
was so seriously ill as to prevent his preaching from 
March until September, and three months in 1850, 
when he made a convalescing trip to Europe, he had 
not been absent a Sunday from his pulpit. The 
national peril in 1856 seemed so great that he was 
induced by his political friends to accept a leave of 
absence from his church and travel through the Middle 
and Western States on a kind of oratorical pilgrim- 
age. Wherever he went his fame preceded him, and 
in that memorable fight he added laurels of imperish- 
able renown to those already won. 



112 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

The defeat of Fremont, by Mr. Beecher and many 
others believed to be the work of Pennsylvania trick- 
sters, consolidated the republican party, intensified the 
growing hatred of the sections and afforded the ex- 
tremists both sides of Mason and Dixon's line a never 
ending theme of discussion. Plymouth pulpit had 
become a national institution. The streets of Brook- 
lyn leading from the ferries were busy with processions 
of men from New York looking for " Beecher." The 
policeman never waited for a stranger to conclude his 
his question, but invariably interrupted him and said, 
" Follow the crowd." That hundreds heard Mr. 
Beecher preach fi-om Sunday to Sunday who hated 
him and his doctrines is undoubtedly the fact. Some 
of the "best people" in the city refused to speak to 
him, and all over the land he was vilified and abused. 
All this made no impression on him. As he said after 
he had been twenty -five years in Plymouth Church: — 
" In the first sermon that I preached on the first Sun- 
day night after I came here was a declaration that 
those who took pews in the church and attended my 
preaching might expect to hear the gospel applied 
faithfully to questions of peace and war and temper- 
ance and moral purification and liberty, and that there 
should be no uncertain sound on these subjects. Dur- 
ing the earlier periods of my ministry here, and perhaps 
for the first twelve years, I made it a point, just pre- 



POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 113 

ceding the renting of the pews, to show my hand with 
all the power that I possessed, to declare my opinions 
on the subject of slavery, in order that no man might 
be deceived and that it might not be supposed that 
popularity or seducing sympathy had changed the 
intense conviction of Plymouth Church in respect to 
the great and fundamental truths of human liberty." 
8 









CHAPTER X. 

SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 

The overwhelming defeat of the Free Soil party in 
1852 was followed in May, 1854, by the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, and slavery was allowed to 
enter where it had once been excluded. Mr. Beecher 
was among the first to express the indignation of the 
Northern States at this breach of good faith. But 
the march of events moved on with almost bewildering 
rapidity. In Massachusetts and Connecticut compa- 
nies were incorporated to aid emigrants in settling the 
new territories. From the Northwestern States came 
likewise sturdy children of the Puritans in search of 
homes and freedom. But on the fertile plains of 
Kansas they met rampant slaveholders from Missouri, 
with their gangs of slaves and hostile defenders of 
"the institution' 1 from the Southern slave States, 
eager to force the Territory at the muzzles of their 
rifles into the shackles of a pro-slavery despotism. 
Standing in his church, Mr. Beecher declared that the 
innocent must be protected by force, if need be, against 
the guilty. And the practical result was the starting 
of a subscription in Plymouth Church to supply every 
114 



SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 115 

Eastern family going to Kansas with a Bible and a 
rifle. When, June 17, 1856, at Philadelphia, the 
Republican National Convention declared for the 
maintenance of the principles of the Declaration of 
Independence embodied in the Constitution, for the 
preservation of the Constitution, the rights of the 
States, and resolved that Congress should prohibit 
slavery in the Territories, Mr. Beecher at once gave 
this platform his unreserved and enthusiastic support. 
More than this, he openly " took the stump " for Fre- 
mont at mass meetings in New York and elsewhere, 
and unceasingly advocated the Republican cause with 
his pen through the columns of the Independent and 
other publications. And yet, during this period, he 
was a voluminous reader, and a student and collector 
of artistic treasures. One of the most popular of his 
lectures was on " The Uses of the Beautiful," and 
much as he lived in public at this time he was 
devoted to his home and social relaxations. 

Disappointed in the election of 1856, he watched 
with absorbing interest the border warfare, the debates 
in Congress, John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry 
and his tragic death, and the movements toward seces- 
sion, which culminated in the withdrawal of South 
Carolina from the Union Dec. 20, 1860, and of other 
States soon after. With pen and voice he labored for 
the success of Abraham Lincoln in the campaign of 



116 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

1860, urging the preservation of the Union and of 
National honor. When, April 12, 1861, the first shot 
fired at Fort Sumter smote the Northern heart, Mr. 
Beecher sprang to the aid of his country. From Ply- 
mouth pulpit came the ringing words of patriotism, 
cheering the timid, encouraging the downcast, denounc- 
ing traitors, but hopeful of the future, pointing out 
clearly the path of right and duty for those who love 
their country. His church, prompt to answer, raised 
and equipped a regiment, the First Long Island, in 
which his eldest son was an officer. Before this regi- 
ment went into actual service, Mr. Beecher often 
visited the camp and preached to the young soldiers, 
many being "my own boys," as he used to call them. 
It was in 1856, when the slavery excitement was 
more intense than ever, that the famous Sharp's rifle 
scene took place. The people of Kansas had been left 
to fight out the question of slavery among themselves. 
The Missourians were naturally the first on the ground, 
and brought their slaves with them, but a number of 
colonies were organized in New England, Ohio, and 
the West, who, of course, were strongly opposed to 
slavery. The Missouri emigrants regarded the North- 
ern ones as intruders, and, being accustomed to the 
use of arms, proceeded to drive them out. The North- 
ern men thereupon appealed to their friends to send 
them arms for self-defense. A colony was being or- 



SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 117 

ganized in Connecticut, and a great meeting was held 
at New Haven, to raise subscriptions with the avowed 
purpose of providing the colonists with rifles. Mr. 
Beecher was there and made a very stirring speech, 
insisting on the right of Northern men to stand up in 
self-defense. A subscription being called for, the 
Senior Class of Yale College announced that they 
would subscribe $50 to buy one rifle. Henry Killam, 
a carriage manufacturer, gave his name as a subscriber 
for another rifle. It was then that Mr. Beecher said, 
"Killam! That's a significant name," a remark which 
brought out great laughter and applause, and which 
was the origin of many fierce attacks upon him for 
years afterward. 

Early in the same year Beecher gained a great tri- 
umph over ultra-conservatism in the anti-slavery ranks. 
A meeting had been called for the purpose of denounc- 
ing the outrageous attack made by Preston S. Brooks, 
of South Carolina, upon Senator Sumner, and Mr. 
Beecher had not been invited to speak by the highly 
conservative men who were in charge. He was pres- 
ent at the meeting as a listener, and had no intention 
of interfering, but the audience clamored for him and 
shouted until they became hoarse, so that finally the 
chairman of the meeting was obliged to invite him to 
speak. He did so, making a speech which quite 
eclipsed all the others and aroused the people to the 



118 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

utmost enthusiasm. It made so deep au impression 
that when Fremont was nominated, soon afterward, the 
Republican managers insisted on having Beecher make 
a canvass through some of the Northern States. 
Wherever he spoke he was received with enthusiasm, 
and, except in New York City, the Republican majori- 
ties were very large. 

The courage, based upon principle, of the man 
showed to fine advantage in 1850, when Captain Ryn- 
ders had brought about a riot in the Broadway Taber- 
nacle on the occasion of Wendell Phillips speaking 
there. This incident alarmed the owners of the Taber- 
nacle building so that they refused to allow Mr. 
Phillips to speak there again. Mr. Beecher immedi- 
ately called upon the Trustees of Plymouth Church 
and demanded that Mr. Phillips should have the use 
of that building. The Trustees were not unfriendly, 
but some hesitated from a fear that the church might 
be burned by a mob. Beecher declared that he would 
rather preach over the ashes of his church than in a 
comfortable church that could not be used for the 
maintenance of free speech. The Trustees agreed to 
consent. Some years afterward, when another riot 
was threatened in New York, and when the use of 
nearly every building was refused, Mr. Beecher again 
insisted that Plymouth Church should be offered for a 
similar purpose, and, although the city was then under 



SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 119 

the government of a party not at all in sympathy with 
Beecher or his views, the effect of his public appeal to 
the citizens to maintain the right of free speech was so 
effective that police were sent to guard the church, and 
the scattering mob which came with the intention of 
creating a riot was speedily dispersed. 

Again, in 1860, party spirit having risen very high, 
serious threats of a mob were made, and a crowd of 
hostile people surrounded Plymouth Church one Sun- 
day evening, but the volunteer guards protected the 
building throughout the service, and no more harm re- 
sulted than the throwing of one stone through a win- 
dow. 

Plymouth Church, meanwhile, grew steadily 
stronger in membership, . and though • dependent 
entirely for support on the sale of seats, Mr. Beecher 
made it clearly understood that the buying of a seat 
would make it necessary for the holders to hear the 
gospel uncompromisingly applied to the practical 
issues of the time. "When Kansas was being settled, 
he fearlessly took the ground that emigrants should 
go out well armed, and caused a subscription to be 
raised in his church to supply every family with a 
Bible and a rifle. 

At his prayer meeting at Plymouth Church one 
evening, a day or two after Horace Greeley had gone 
to "Virginia and become bondsman for the release of 



120 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Jeff Davis, the topic of Mr. Beecher' s remarks was 
"The effect of temperament on a man's religious 
creed," and toward the close of his talk he said some- 
thing very much like this: "Recently a prominent 
Northern man has gone to the relief of a noted male- 
factor, and an avalanche of abuse has been heaped 
upon him. But, in my opinion, his act is worthy of 
commendation.' 1 When he had finished a hymn was 
sung, and then the usual discussion by the congrega- 
tion began. Tommy Shearman led off, and respect- 
fully but warmly, and almost tearfully, condemned the 
remarks of the pastor. He was followed by a dozen 
more, all in the same strain, Mr. Beecher getting more 
nervous all the time. The last speaker told about a 
Quaker farmer who had given directions to his serv- 
ants about a sheep-killing dog that had devastated his 
flocks, and who told them to catch that dog and cut off 
his tail close up to his ears. "That," said the 
speaker, in his last sentence, and with a venomous 
gesture, " is what I would do with Jeff Davis." As 
these words were uttered, Mr. Beecher gave an impa- 
tient hitch in his chair, and said, " Jeff Davis never 
once entered my head, in what I said." This aston- 
ished but quieted the people, and so the meeting 
closed. The next day the newspapers were filled with 
accounts of the rumpus, and loudly called on Mr. 



SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 123 

Beecher to tell what case he really did have in mind, 
but Mr. Beecher never told. 

Some of his people left his ministry, but where one 
went twenty new ones came. He demanded a free 
platform for himself and accorded it to others. His 
people did not servilely believe anything because he 
said it, for they often maintained opinions different 
from his to the end. Fortunately Mr. Beecher was a 
many-sided man. His superabundant health and exu- 
berent flow of spirits made him fresh and full of life. 
Cares, troubles and work seemed but to inspire him. 
The more he had to do the easier he did it. The 
habits of his life were regular. For years after he 
began his Brooklyn work he slept an hour or two 
every afternoon. He ate sparingly. At first it was 
his habit, after the evening service, to go with his wife 
and a few friends to the house of a parishioner and 
eat a hearty supper — cold roast beef, roast oysters, 
cold fowl or whatever — but as he grew stout and older 
he gave that habit over. So far as the public were 
concerned he was equable in temper. He always bore 
himself good naturedly, and from the first met strang- 
ers, old or young, with a frank look and a pleasant 
smile. At this period— 1856 and on — he was writing 
for the Independent, lecturing two or three times a 
week, preaching twice every Sunday, lecturing in his 
chapel Wednesday evenings, and talking with his peo- 



124 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHER. 

pie in the prayer meetings of Friday. This, in addi- 
tion to pastoral calls, funeral services, weddings, and 
the thousand and one importunities to which popular 
men of all professions are liable. But even this did 
not seem to be enough. Throwing his heart into the 
work, he endeavored, in spite of great national excite- 
ment, to turn the thought of his people heavenward, 
and, in 1858-9, the most " extraordinary works of 
grace were in progress " in his congregation. In the 
early summer of 1858, a perfect harvest of young peo- 
ple was gathered into the church, the total number 
being 378. 

Meantime Mr. Beecher, in his pulpit and by his 
pen, stirred the depths of the heart of the nation, and 
although to many it appeared as if pastor and church 
were monomaniacs, it must be admitted that they 
stood together in stormy and troublesome times, faith- 
ful witnesses to the great truths of human right and 
human liberty. Later on, when, as the result of such 
agitations, discussion broke out into a flame of war, 
they did not fliuch, but gave their sons and daughters, 
sending them to the field and the hospital. He kept 
a vigilant eye upon affairs, and was one on whom men 
in authority leaned for counsel. He had worked hard 
to elect Abraham Lincoln, and often thanked God that 
He had raised such a man from the level of the people. 
As the nation hesitated in its first step the clarion cry 



SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 125 

of Beecher recalled it to its duty. Later on, when dis- 
aster and defeat sent the thrill of dismay through the 
North, the voice of Beecher warned the people of the 
danger of neglecting duty and the infamy of desertion. 
He wrote and spoke and urged and worked without 
rest. He counselled the President, cheered the troops, 
and encouraged the people. 

" I first saw Mr. Beecher," said General Horatio C. 
King, "in 1857, when I was a student at Dickinson 
College, and a number of us clubbed together and 
chartered a stage to go to Harrisburg and hear him 
lecture. He was then already noted, but excited very 
diverse sentiments as to his religion and patriotism. 
The college was largely recruited from the Southern 
and border States, and there was quite a hot discussion 
among the boys as to going to hear this abolitionist 
who had counselled Sharp's rifles for ' bleeding Kan- 
sas.' But curiosity and good sense prevailed, and we 
went. There was a feeling of disappointment when 
the orator came upon the platform. He was then in 
the prime of his physical vigor, with well-knit form, 
long dark hair, careless apparently in demeanor and 
with little appearance of the clergyman or public 
speaker about him. But he had not proceeded far in 
his discourse before he revealed his power, and we 
found ourselves frequently applauding sentiments we 
didn't believe in and were completely carried away by 



126 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

his masterly eloquence. He seemed to be regardless 
of the ordinary rules of oratory, restless, impatient of 
restraint, moving across the platform impetuously, — in 
a word, the highest exponent of what we supposed to 
be natural oratory. Mr. Beecher told me years later 
that it required three years of the most arduous study 
and practice, mostly in the wood, where he wouldn't 
disturb any one, to acquire this natural style. I can 
see him as if it were but yesterday, with impassioned 
speech, throwing his head back to get rid of the rebel- 
lious lock which would fall over his forehead and 
obscure his vision." 

In 1860 or 1861 a beautiful octoroon girl, raised 
and owned by a prominent citizen of this country, Mr. 
John Churchman, attempted to make her escape 
North. She was arrested and brought back. Her 
master then determined to sell her, and found a ready 
purchaser in another citizen, Mr. Fred Scheffer. 
Shortly after this the late owner was impressed with 
the belief that the girl intended to make another effort 
to go North the first opportunity that presented. To 
meet the emergency and save trouble Mr. Scheffer 
proposed to Sarah that she should go North and raise 
enough money from the abolitionists to purchase her- 
self. This proposition she eagerly accepted, and. 
being furnished with means by Mrs. Scheffer to pay 
her fare, she started. A few days after her arrival in 



SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 127 

New York she was taken to Mr. Beecher, and on the 
following Sabbath morning was escorted to his pulpit 
in Brooklyn. She was a woman of commanding pres- 
ence, rounded features, and winning face and long jet 
black hair, and of course, under the circumstances, 
attracted most eager attention and interest from the 
large and wealthy congregation assembled. She was 
requested to unloosen her hair, and as she did so it 
fell in glistening waves over her shoulders and below 
her waist. Robed in spotless white, her face crim- 
soned and form heaving under the excitement of the 
occasion, she stood in that august presence a very 
Venus in form and feature. For a moment Mr. 
Beecher remained by her side without uttering a word, 
until the audience was wrought up to a high pitch of 
curiosity and excitement. And then in his impressive 
way he related her story and her mission. Before he 
concluded his pathetic recital the vast audience was a 
sea of commotion. Tears ran down cheeks unused to 
the melting mood, eager curiosity and excitement per- 
vaded the whole congregation, and as the Pastor an- 
nounced that he wanted $2,000 for the girl before him 
to redeem her promise to pay for freedom, costly jew- 
elry and trinkets and notes and specie piled in in such 
rapid succession than in less time than it takes to 
write this down enough and much more was con- 



128 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

tributed than was necessary to meet the call that had 
been made. 

"After she was free the ladies of the church wrote 
a little book, in which a full account of her life was 
given. With the money that was obtained from the 
sale of this they bought a little place for her at Peek- 
skill, where she raised fowls and sold eggs and butter 
for a Hying. She is living there still, but is now an old 
woman about fifty years of age. Sarah was known as 
both Sarah Scheffer and Sarah Churchman. She never 
married, and was never tired of talking about how 
good Mr. Beecher and his family had been to her. 



CHAPTEK XL 

IN THE OLD WORLD. 

These incessant and exhausting labors finally under- 
mined Mr. Beech er's strength, and his voice began to 
fail. It was decided that he should go abroad for 
temporary rest. His health once before had been 
broken. This was in March, 1849, when he was 
severely ill and unable to preach between March and 
September, and in the following June, under a leave 
of absence, he went abroad. Another leave of absence 
was granted in 1856, but this was not on account of ill 
health. Eminent clergymen and others had requested 
it "in order that he might traverse the country in 
behalf of the cause of liberty, then felt to be in peril." 
On going abroad a second time, in June, 1863, he had 
no idea that he was going in behalf of the cause of 
liberty, and the many entreaties that were made on his 
arrival for him to speak in England were uniformly 
declined. He remained in that country but a short 
time, going thence to Wales, to Paris, Switzerland, 
Northern Italy, and Germany. He received in Paris 
the news that Vicksburg had fallen and that the Union 
Army had won at Gettysburg. Eeturning to England 
9 129 



130 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

he was again asked to speak. He again declined, and 
on the same ground as before, that this was a quarrel 
which the Americans must fight out, and which could 
not be talked out. Requests were, however, still 
pressed upon him, and he was at last made to see that 
he owed a duty to that small but devoted party which 
had been holding up the Northern cause in England 
against heavy odds. A series of engagements was 
accordingly formed for him to speak in the chief cities 
of England and Scotland. It was very easy to arrange. 
The task was for the speaker. 

In order to fully comprehend the magnitude of the 
work on which Mr. Beecher had entered, it is necessary 
to recall the state of feeling in England at that time. 
Oliver AVendell Holmes wrote after Mr. Beecher' s 
return: "The Devil had got the start of the clergy- 
man, as he very often does after all. The wretches 
who have been for three years pouring their leprous 
distilment into the ears of Great Britain had pre- 
occupied the ground and were determined to silence 
the minister if they could. For this purpose they 
looked to the heathen populace of the nominally 
Christian British cities. They covered the walls with 
blood-red placards, they stimulated the mob by inflam- 
matory appeals, they filled the air with threats of riot 
and murder. It was in the midst of scenes like these 



IN THE OLD WORLD. 131 

that the single solitary American opened his lips to 
speak in behalf of his country." 

Stirred by long nursed hatred of the man and his 
principles, the Southern agents, aided by their Eng- 
lish friends and blockade runners, organized gangs of 
roughs to attend and, if possible, to break up the 
meetings. Howling mobs crowded into Mr. Beecher' s 
meetings, fighting and picking pockets by way of re- 
laxation, and sought in a fury of blind and unreason- 
ing rage to drive the preacher from the platform. 

Fortunately, Beecher had entirely recovered his 
health. He was in prime condition. He knew his 
subject and his whole heart was in the work. 

His opening address was made in Free Trade Hall, 
at Manchester, to an audience of 6,000 persons. 

The largest hall was engaged. The largest hall 
was packed. When the orator appeared at once there 
rose so wild a yell, such a storm of hisses and such an 
outburst of opprobrium that braver men would have 
been justified in declining to face them. 

Not so Beecher. 

He advanced to the front of the platform and benig- 
nantly smiled. He was the embodiment of good 
nature — - fat, round and jolly. His bump of humor 
was erect and took in the situation. Of physical dan- 
ger — and there was plenty of it — he had no fear. 
All he wanted was silence and attention. 



132 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Notwithstanding the roar and fury which was raised 
in order to prevent his being heard, he bravely pushed 
ahead and completed his address. On the following 
day the London Times published the whole of it, along 
with a column of severe criticism. Four days later 
he spoke in the City Hall, at Glasgow, and the next 
day at Edinburgh. At Liverpool he had a great strug- 
gle with a noisy throng that filled the public hall. It 
was at Liverpool that Clarkson was mobbed and nearly 
drowned after being thrown off a wharf, and it was 
little that Mr. Beecher could expect from its brutal 
j) >) (illation. Printed reports of his speech contained 
many parentheses describing wild uproars, hootings, 
cat calls, clamorous denials, and other interruptions, 
bat in spite of all the tumult Mr. Beecher told the 
men of Liverpool all that he had to say. He after- 
ward said of this experience: "I had to speak extem- 
pore on subjects the most delicate and difficult as 
between our two nations, where even the shading of 
my words was of importance, and yet I had to out- 
ssream a mob and drown the roar of a multitude. It 
was like driving a team of runaway horses and making 
lo/e to a lady at the same time." Mr. Beecher, we 
are assured by his sister Mrs. Stowe, has always felt 
this pleading for the cause of his country at the bar of 
the civilized world to be the greatest effort and sever- 
est labor of his life. 




Henry Ward Beecher at 25. 

See page 50. 



IN THE OLD WOULD. 135 

October 13, Mr. Beeclier was invited to a temper- 
ance meeting in Glasgow, which assumed a political 
character. His speech was almost conversational in 
character, and appears to have been entirely unpre- 
meditated. The quietest meeting that he addressed 
was in the Free Church Assembly Hall at Edinburgh 
on the next day, October 14. But the mobs of Liver- 
pool were in waiting for him, and his address in that 
city was the stormiest struggle that he passed through 
By dint of cheerful perseverance, fearlessness, and a 
powerful voice Mr. Beecher said his say. " I stood in 
Liverpool," he wrote in a letter, " and looked on the 
demoniac scene without a thought that it was I who 
was present. It seemed rather like a storm raging in 
the trees of the forests, that roared and impeded my 
progress, but yet had matters personal or willful in it 
against me. You know how, when we are lifted by 
the inspiration of a great subject, and by a most vis- 
ible presence and vivid sympathy with Christ, the mind 
forgets the sediments and dregs of trouble and sails 
serenely in an upper realm of peace as untouched by 
the noise below as is a bird that flies across a battle- 
field. O, my friend, I have felt an inexpressible won- 
der that God should give it to me to do something for 
the dear land. When sometimes the idea of being 
clothed with the power to stand up in this great king- 
dom against an inconceivable violence of prejudice and 



136 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

mistake and clear the name of my dishonored country, 
and let her brow shine forth, crowned with liberty, 
glowing with love to man, 0, I have seemed unable 
to live, almost. It almost took my breath away! I 
have not in a single instance gone to the speaking halls 
without all the way breathing to God unutterable de- 
sires for inspiration, guidance, and success; and I have 
had no disturbance of personality. I have been will- 
ing, yea, with eagerness, to be myself contemptible in 
man's sight if only my disgrace might be to the honor 
of that cause which is intrusted to our own thrice dear 
country." 

Speaking of these times, an Englishman writes: 
It was my privilege to hear him when he addressed an 
audience of Englishmen in Exeter Hall, London, on 
the then all-absorbing topic of the '• American War." 
Never shall I forget the scene. The masses of the 
English people had already taken sides in favor of the 
Southern Confederacy, and only a few, such, for 
instance, as the Rev. Newman Hall, the Hon and Rev. 
Baptist Wriothsley Noel, and a few other nonconform- 
ist clergymen of the same stamp, had the courage to 
defend the North, and this at the hazard of mob vio- 
lence, when Mr. Beecher suddenly appeared, and, 
fighting his way from Manchester to London, dared 
to face the howling and vicious mobs who* assailed 
him, and by his indomitable courage succeeded in 



IN THE OLD WORLD. 137 

gaining at least a respectful hearing, which, at Exeter 
Hall, culminated in a grand triumph on behalf of 
liberty and justice. On that occasion his grand elo- 
quence carried his audience until burst after burst of 
deafening cheers greeted his every period, and the 
scene at the close of his address can never be fully 
realized, except by those who were eye witnesses of 
this grand event. 

Tuesday, Oct. 20, Mr. Beecber's series of addresses 
culminated in his last and greatest effort at Exeter 
Hall, London. Mr. Beecher had won the sympathy 
of his hearers at last. He wrote home the next day: 
"Even an American would be impressed by the 
enthusiasm of so much of England as the people of 
last night represented for the North. It was more 
than willing, than hearty, than even eager; it was 
almost wild and fanatical. I was like to have been 
killed with people pressing to shake my hand; men, 
women, and children crowded up the platform. I was 
shaken, pinched, squeezed, in every way an affection- 
ate enthusiasm could devise, until the police actually 
came to my rescue and dragged me down to the 
retiring-room, where gentlemen brought their wives, 
daughters, sons, and selves for a God bless you! 
England will be enthusiastically right provided we 
hold on and gain victories. But England has an in- 
tense and yearning sense of the value of success." 



138 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

One passage in this last speech should be remem- 
bered: "Standing by my cradle, standing by my 
hearth, standing by the altar of the church, standing 
by all the places that mark the name and memory of 
heroic men, who poured their blood and lives for 
principle, I declare that in ten or twenty years of war 
we will sacrifice everything we have for principle. If 
the love of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain 
you will not understand us, but if the love of liberty 
lives as it once lived and has worthy successors of 
those renowned men that were our ancestors as much 
as yours, and whose example and principles we inherit 
to make fruitful as so much seed-corn in a new and 
fertile land, then you will understand our firm, invin- 
cible determination — deep as the sea, firm as the 
mountains, but calm as the heavens above us — to fight 
this war through at all hazards and at every cost." 
The splendor of these words swept even the phleg- 
matic Englishmen off their feet. The enthusiasm of 
an audience spell -bound by oratory can not, of course, 
be taken as a fair example of the result of Mr. 
Beecher's work in England, but, in this moral em- 
bassy, preaching the great universal truths of human- 
ity, he certainly influenced greatly the English middle 
classes and affected somewhat the tone of public 
thought. 

To him alone should be attributed the credit 



IN THE OLD WORLD. 139 

of having turned the tide of English opinion, and 
of having succeeded in laying the foundation of 
that better judgment which prevented the government 
of that day from officially recognizing the Confederacy 
as an accomplished fact. As a theologian, Mr. 
Beecher can hardly be classed as belonging to any 
known school, but as the representative of that higher 
and nobler range of religious thought which soars 
above, and breaks through the narrow limits of all 
theological systems. Creed he had none, but he pos- 
sessed that which is better than creeds, a love for his 
fellow men, which made him the friend of all. To him 
his pulpit was the platform from which he delighted 
to scatter broadcast the truths which were dear to his 
heart, irrespective of denominational formulas or colle- 
giate restrictions. With an instinctive love for the 
human race, he delighted to so deal with religious 
truths that his utterances might help upward and 
onward the thousands who flocked to hang upon his 
lips and listen to his peerless discourses. Throughout 
the length and breadth of this land, thousands to-day 
are thankful at the remembrance of the fact that it 
was their privilege at some time or other to sit at his 
feet, and in the revelations of the great beyond he has 
doubtless already met many who recognize in him the 
honored one whose privilege it was to lead them out of 
darkness into light. 



140 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

As a citizen of the United States, he was a thor- 
oughly loyal and devoted son, believing most pro- 
foundly in the Republican form of government, and 
ready to trust an educated and enlightened democracy 
to the fullest extent. But although preferring his 
own above every other land, and its form of govern- 
ment above every other, he had no unkind words for 
constitutional monarchies, and no grander sentences 
have ever been uttered by living man in praise of the 
stability and permanence of British institutions than 
by Henry Ward Beecher. Long before the war, and 
before his visit to England in 1803, when he could 
have no possible object to serve, he spoke as follows: 

" Which is the strongest throne on the globe to- 
day? Why, the English unquestionably. Partly 
because a noble, virtuous, illustrious woman sits upon 
it. An everlasting answer to those who say that a 
woman ought not to speak and vote is the fact that 
the proudest sovereign in the world to-day is Queen 
Victoria. She dignifies womanhood and motherhood, 
and she is fit to sit in Empire. That is one reason 
why the English throne is the strongest, but that is 
not the only reason, it is the strongest also because it 
is so many-legged. It stands on thirty million people. 
It represents the interests of the masses of its sub- 
jects. Another cause why England is the strongest 
nation is, because it is the most Christian nation — 



IN THE OLD WORLD. 141 

because it has the most moral power. It has more 
than we have. We like to talk about ourselves on the 
4th of July ; but we are not to be compared to-day 
Avith Old England. I know her sturdy faults ; I know 
her stubborn conceit. I know how many things are 
mischievous among her poor, common people, among 
her operatives of the factory, and among her common 
serfs of the mine; but taking her up one side and 
down the other, there is not another nation that repre- 
sents so much Christianity as Old England. If you 
do not like to hear it, I like to say it, that the 
strongest power on the globe to-day is that kingdom. 
It is the strongest kingdom, and the one that is least 
liable to be shaken down. England should have been 
destroyed every ten or fifteen years, from the time of 
the Armada to the present day, in the prophecy of 
men. * * * And yet she has stood, as she now 
stands, mistress of the sea, and the strongest power 
on the earth, because she has represented moral ele- 
ments." 

Speaking afterwards in the Free Trade Hall in 
Manchester, he said: " There is not reigning on the 
globe a sovereign who commands our simple, unpre- 
tentious and unaffected respect, as your own beloved 
Queen in America." For continental despots he had 
no respect, regarding them as the enemies of all true 
progress, but for Britain's Queen, he had nothing but 



142 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

lavish praise. On every fitting opportunity he held 
her up as a pattern for imitation in all that gives glory 
to Christian womanhood! 

Speaking of this fight of the great preacher, single- 
handed, against the British public, the Kev. Dr. Peter 
MacLeod, of Glasgow, said: "The British people be- 
gan to see the case more clearly; the press became 
more subdued as it prepared to wheel round, and the 
Alabama and blockade runner building on the Mersey 
and the Clyde were suddenly stopped by the govern- 
ment by orders from Whitehall. Had Mr. Beecher 
only come two years sooner, there would have been 
little sympathy in Britain for the slave-holding South." 

Theodore Parker once spoke of Beecher as the 
" preacher of the Plymouth pulpit whose sounding- 
board was the Rocky Mountains.' 1 

At another time he said: "He is eternally young, 
and positively wears me out with his redundant, super- 
abundant, ever-recovering and ever-renewing energy." 

Mr. Beecher returned from England in the winter 
of 1863-4 He came so quietly that he had reached 
his own house in Brooklyn before the facts of his 
arrival became generally known. A few days later a 
great mass meeting was held in the Brooklyn Academy 
of Music, and when Mr. Beecher rose to speak, he 
was, as Harper's Magazine said, " next to Abraham 
Lincoln, the most honored man in the country." He 






IN THE OLD WORLD. 143 

told his audience that it was aristocratic, commercial, 
and voting England that was against us, and declared 
that non-voting England was our friend. Mr. 
Beecher was much exhausted by his English labors. 
All the strength he had acquired by his rest abroad 
was poured out in the battle he waged with English 
preiudice on the eve of his departure. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE PREACHING OF PEACE. 



t 

When he returned to America the close of the war 
was near at hand, and then, with the penetration which 
characterized hiin, he perceived the need of a different 
message. Now it was not opposition to the South that 
he labored to arouse, but peace, forgiveness, and mag- 
nanimity. It mattered nothing to him that such 
teaching might be unwelcome. 

Immediately after the surrender of Richmond he 
expressed in strong terms his desire for a complete re- 
union of the people of the North and South and his 
opposition to any scheme of punishment other than the 
mere abolition of slavery, which he really did not look 
upon at all as a punishment, but as a benefit alike to 
master and slave. A majority of his people had be- 
come so excited at the events of the war as to receive 
this advice with disfavor, and, upon the assassination 
of Abraham Lincoln, which happened while Beecher 
was at Fort Sumter, and therefore could know nothing 
about it. the feeling on the part of his friends became 
quite intense — was especially so among those who had 
not been known as abolitionists before the war. Many 
144 



THE PREACHING OF PEACE. 147- 

of them informed him on his return that they would 
not consent to his advocating a general amnesty as he 
had intimated his intention of doing. This was the 
first time that any of his friends had thought him too 
conservative. It made but little difference to him. 
He persisted in opposing the execution of Jefferson 
Davis, the confiscation of rebel property, and every 
other form of punishment. For more than a year this 
difference of opinion between him and a majority of 
the church continued, producing the only instance of 
what might be called alienation between them ever 
known in the history of the church. 

He spoke the message that was in him, whether 
men would hear or whether they would forbear. Men 
listened, and Beecher's popularity grew Avith marvelous 
rapidity. The streets of Brooklyn leading from the 
ferries were busy with processions of men from New 
York looking for "Beecher." The policemen never 
waited for a stranger to conclude his question, but in- 
variably interrupted him with, "Follow the crowd." 

An interesting incident occurred at the Academy of 
Music in Brooklyn on the occasion of the celebration 
by the negroes, of the passage of the XYth amendment. 
The vast building was packed with whites and negroes 
in about equal numbers. Mr. Beecher was called 
upon to introduce Senator Revel to the audience, and 
as, at the conclusion of his remarks, he grasped the 



148 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. . 

latter by the hand, saying, "As the representative of 
one race I extend to you, the representative of another, 
the right hand of fellowship," the great audience rose 
in a perfect frenzy of enthusiasm. 

With the fall of slavery Mr. Beecher's activity in 
regard to public questions did not cease. He was 
among those who, with Williain Lloyd Garrison, went 
down to raise again the national flag above the ruins 
of Fort Sumter. He had many exciting experiences 
in the South, one of the most touching and character- 
istic being a great meeting in one of the largest 
chuches in South Carolina, at which he preached to a 
congregation of liberated slaves. 

The first time Mr. Beecher lectured in the South 
was on the evening of January 31, 1805, at the Mary- 
land Institute. There was considerable objection to it 
among the timid. Chief Justice Chase, Mr. Stanton 
and others sat upon the stand with him. A telegram 
was received while he was speaking announcing the 
passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing 
slavery. This created what is known among men of 
the world as a " high old time." 

On returning home he was met by the news of Lin- 
coln's death. Not long afterward he preached in Ply- 
mouth Church a sermon which led to great discussion 
and in which he expounded the crisis of the time as a 
great and rare opportunity for the forgiveness of inju- 



THE PREACHING OF PEACE. 149 

ries. Plymouth Church continued still to be the cen- 
ter from which radiated much political activity on the 
part of Mr. Beecher. It was his idea that a Protestant 
church ought to be a congregation of faithful men and 
women seeking to apply to human life and society the 
principles of Christianity. It was always distinctively 
a temperance and an anti-slavery society, and in this 
line of action it continued after the war to prosper 
financially and to be a source of wide moral influence. 
Its revenues in 1868 amounted to $50,000 a year. 
The debt had been entirely extinguished and the 
church was devoting its surplus to missionary opera- 
tions in the neighborhood. A new organ had been 
purchased at a cost of $22,000. It was the largest 
church organ in the country. These were years of as- 
tounding financial prosperity. What is known as the 
Bethel had been organized in 1841, and came under 
the care of Plymouth Church in May, 1866. Mr. 
George A. Bell was made superintendent in the follow- 
ing year, and a plot of land was purchased in Hicks 
street for the erection in the following summer of the 
present edifice. The attendance at the school in 1866 
had been 220. In two years it increased to 373, and 
several years ago the average attendance was about 
600. The entire cost of the Bethel was about $75,000, 
of which sum $20,000 was raised by voluntary sub- 
scriptions, $6,250 by a church fair, and the remainder 



150 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

by the surplus from pew rents iu Plymouth Church. 
On the Mayflower mission at the navy yard $25,000 
had been expended ten years ago. Some interesting 
statistics of the internal work of Plymouth Church may 
here be given. During the thirty-five years that had 
elapsed in 1882 since Mr. Beecher began his work, 
4,500 persons had been received into the church, or an 
average of 130 for each year of the whole period. The 
membership in 1882 was 2,491, of whom 878 were men 
and 1,613 were women. The audience room will con- 
tain 3,000 people, and 3,200 have been known to get 
within its door. Six hundred of the sittings are free, 
and if pewholders do not fill their pews by five min- 
utes before the service begins it is a printed rule that 
the ushers may fill them with strangers. Pews are 
sold each year at auction, and each has a fixed rental. 
They are sold to persons who bid the highest premium 
in addition to the rental. For a period of thirty years 
the total receipts from pews have been $1,139,633, of 
which sum $554,855 were received during the ten 
years (1872-1882), $423,209 in the ten previous years 
(1862-1872), and $161,569 in the next previous ten 
years (1852-1862). This is a yearly average of 
nearly $38,000, the lowest average having been about 
$11,000, and the highest about $69,000. For benevo- 
lent and charitable objects about $500,000 has been 
collected in the church building, which sum does not 



THE PREACHING OF PEACE. 151 

include either the collections made by committees of 
ladies or the individual gifts to colleges, schools, and 
sufferers by fire, pestilence, and famine, all of which 
have been very large. The assistant pastor of the 
church, Mr. Halliday, in one of his recent yearly re- 
ports, stated that he had made 2,000 visits, had at- 
tended more than 300 religious services, nearly 150 
funerals, and had married twenty-two couples. Dur- 
ing a period of eleven years the number of his visits 
had exceeded 20,000, the funerals he had attended 
were about 1,400, and the couples he had married were 
about 200. 

General Horatio C. King gives the following anec- 
dote of the large organ: "It would be impossible, in a 
brief space, to give any adequate idea of Mr. Beech- 
er's many-sided character as manifested in daily inter- 
course with him. I became connected with the church 
in 1865 under very happy auspices, my wife, who was 
then soon to be, being the daughter of Mr. Howard, 
the first member of the church, and probably Mr. 
Beecher's oldest and closest friend in the commission. 
It was thus I was brought into continued intercourse 
with him. His great fondness of music was also a 
special bond of sympathy with me, and with that fac- 
ulty he had of winning friends to him and making 
them do his will cheerfully, he soon had me in harness 
in the musical world. The church had just before 



152 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER, 

expended an unusually large sum for a new organ. 
While it was being put together, Mr. Beecher was as 
much interested as a boy with a new toy, now going 
around the workmen, asking questions without num- 
ber, studying the mechanism, cracking jokes on all 
sides, and, finally, immortalizing the largest of the 
pipes of the thirty -two . foot diapason by crawling 
through it. He was not so large then as in the last 
few years of his life, but he was big enough to fill the 
great tube and have a pretty hard struggle to crawl 
through. The pipe still bears in lead pencil an 
inscription of this exploit." 

These were years of astounding financial prosperity, 
and Plymouth Church and its pastor were matters of 
national pride. 

" After the war," writes another admirer of Mr. 
Beecher, " I came to Brooklyn and became a member 
of Plymouth Church. He speedily made me most 
welcome, and it was not long before he had me in har- 
ness and ready to help him in any of the work of the 
church. Music had always been a hobby with him, 
and when the great organ was put up in the church he 
cast about for some means to make it useful for other 
than mere Sunday work. So the organ concerts were 
instituted at his desire, and for several years, during 
the larger part of each year, the church was thronged 
every Saturday with interested listeners, and organ- 



THE PREACHING OE PEACE. 153 

ists were secured from all parts of the country and 
Canada. 

" In this he took great satisfaction. It was a worthy- 
succession to his successful efforts in congregational 
singing, for it was through his instrumentality, backed 
by arduous personal effort, that the first hymn and 
tune book combined (the Plymouth Collection) was 
introduced into the churches. This was only a little 
over thirty years ago, and now nearly every Protestant 
denomination has its own particular hymn and tune 
book and the compiling of new ones, continually 
going on. It is a matter of history, by the way, that, 
although the sale of the Plymouth Collection has prob- 
ably exceeded a hundred thousand, neither the com- 
pilers nor the church ever received a cent of income 
from it, but the revenue from this source, which was 
intended for the church, was improperly diverted into 
other channels. 

" In this connection I may as well speak of a pro- 
ject which is known to very few. During the life of 
John Zundel, now deceased, who was organist of the 
church for twenty-five years, Mr. Beecher made up 
his mind that he wanted a new hymn book. When 
the old collection was made the use of certain copy- 
rights was refused, and some of the most beautiful 
hymns were wedded to tunes so unsatisfactory that 
they were rarely if ever used. So there were many 



154 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

hymns which advanced thought had left far in the 
rear, and for these and other reasons the work was 
undertaken. The details were intrusted to Rev. 
Samuel Scoville, his. son-in-law, Mr. Zundel and 
myself. 

" We went heartily into the work, and much earlier 
than was expected, we had a dummy hymn book ready 
for his examination. ' My residence was then on 
Columbia Heights, two or three blocks below Mr. 
Beecher' s, so the examination was conducted at my 
house, the tunes being usually played over by me, 
while Mr. Beecher, as chief critic, passed upon our 
work. No pleasanter duty ever fell to my lot, for at 
each sitting, every hymn almost was the occasion for 
some historical reminiscence full of interest, pathos, 
wit and humor, as the case might be, and before we 
got through we had received a pretty thorough disqui- 
sition on hymnology, ancient and modern, and an end- 
less fund of anecdote touching the inception, prepara- 
tion and publication of the original volume. Thus 
far all went smoothly, and we had gone even to the 
extent of securing a publisher, when we ran against 
an obstacle in the shape of a name for the new publi- 
cation. The copyright of the Plymouth Collection had 
not then expired, and Mr. Beecher declined to permit 
any encroachment upon the name, even with the modi- 
fication of the ' New Plymouth Hymnal,' nor would he 



THE PREACHING OP PEACE. 155 

allow us to call it ' Beecher 1 s Collection.' So, after 
drifting about for a while, the whole matter was 
indefinitely postponed." 

To portray the ideal Henry Ward Beecher requires 
that he be taken as he stood before the public eye at 
the close of the Civil War. He was then about fifty- 
two years of age, perfect in health, robust, not clumsy, 
— his complexion like that of a vigorous young woman, 
his voice strong, clear, and of great compass, — a com- 
manding voice, his body the willing and complete ser- 
vant of his mind and heart, every gland and muscle 
responding to his changing moods. He had come of 
an ancestry so famous in American ecclesiastical his- 
tory that he was introduced in England by one who 
thought to do him the greatest honor as " the son of 
the great Dr. Beecher, of America." In personal 
presence he was remarkable, chiefly by the great 
transformation of his countenance under the play of 
emotion. On the platform of Plymouth Church he 
was as a king upon his throne or the commander of a 
war ship in victorious action. His manners in private 
life were most ingratiating. His good fellowship put 
children and servants and the most distinguished, re- 
served and cultivated persons alike at ease, and served 
as a center of union for every company of which he 
was a part. 

Did Mr. Beecher go to the theatres? 



156 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" I remember," said a friend, " when he first went 
to Irving Hall. A billiard match was in progress 
somewhere in the sixties, I should judge, about 1865. 
The room was fringed on three sides with amphitheat- 
rically-arranged seats, the large central portion being 
reserved for the tables, the players, the judges, and 
the members of the press. Mr. Beecher entered the 
room attended by a young friend about half- past eight 
in the evening. He was not then known so univer- 
sally as in late years, but he was tolerably well known 
even to the class of men there congregated, and when 
some fellow, half in fun and half earnest, proposed 
' three cheers for Henry Ward Beecher ' they were 
given with a will. 

" The dominie took his seat near the head of the re- 
porters' table and watched with unfeigned interest the 
progress of a particularly interesting and exciting con- 
test. About ten o'clock he arose to go, and again the 
audience saluted his retreating form with three 
tremendous, hearty, manly cheers, which he acknowl- 
edged with bow and smile, and not a suggestion of an 
unpleasant incident occurred until, as he neared the 
door, that vulgar brute Isaiah Kynders confronted him 
in the aisle with ' Beecher, what will you have to 
drink?' 

" ' Nothing, sir,' replied Beecher, with characteristic 
dignity, and left the hall." 




Henry Ward Beecher in 



THE PREACHING OF PEACE. 159 

In those days going to the theatre by clergymen 
made much talk, and in speaking of an early lecture 
delivered when he was a very young man in the West 
for a particular purpose against theatres and theatrical 
entertainments generally, Mr. Beecher said: "I have 
no doubt I would be instructed, entertained, edified by 
witnessing a good play, but it would take months of 
explanation and years of weary controversy to explain 
the why and the wherefore, so I say to myself it is not 
worth while even to gain so much good to go through 
so much more worry." 

And he was entirely right. 

I saw him once in Burton's Chamber Street 
Theatre. Burton was a famous farceur, and he had 
a great company with him. But it wasn't to see 
Burton nor to see his famous company that Mr. 
Beecher went to his theatre. It was on the occasion 
of an initial revival meeting, where he was invited as 
one of the clergymen of the vicinage, and into the pro- 
cedure of which he entered with all the enthusiasm 
and spirit then so eminently characteristic of him, and 
which, in spite of all the glowing obituaries that are 
printed here to-day, I must say were largely toned 
down in the last ten years of his useful and exacting 
life. When abroad he went several times to the 
theatre. He went to see Rip Van Winkle as played 
by Joe Jefferson, and enjoyed it heartily. He was 



160 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

much sought by Henry Irving and by Ellen Terry, 
and he reciprocated their courteous civility by attend- 
ing and enjoying their peculiar performances. He 
wanted to see Booth's Hamlet, but whether he went or 
not I can not say. He had accepted a box for Daly's 
Theatre Wednesday night of this week, and had in- 
vited sjome friends of forty years' standing to go with 
him. He felt a natural diffidence about going into 
any public audience, because he was instantly recog- 
nized wherever he went and became a target for the 
glasses and gossip of the occasion, as he did sub- 
sequently for the carping criticisms of the outside 
world. 

Did this indicate lack of stamina, lack of inde- 
pendence ? 

Not at all. 

And if it did, if there was any man on the face of 
God's footstool who could afford to meet the charge of 
a lack of independence, surely it was Henry Ward 
Beecher, the man who fifty yeais ago grappled the 
monster intemperance by the throat, who forty years 
ago electrified the world and put himself in the pillory 
of commercial and social contempt by challenging the 
beast of slavery to a life- long combat. O, no, it 
wasn't that. It was precisely what he said it was — a 
disinclination to gain a little good at too heavy a cost, 



THE PREACHING OF TEACE. 161 

a cost which meant mental bother and physical worri- 
ment of no small dimensions. 

The dramatic profession had in him a sincere and 
intelligent friend. He was always ready to defend it 
against fanatical attacks and to pay tribute to its vir- 
tues of charity and fraternity. An English guest who 
recently visited Mr. Beecher found himself invited to 
spend the evening, not at a church conference, but at 
a performance of "Othello." The oration of Mr. 
Beecher at the Irving banquet last year was a master- 
piece of criticism as well as of eloquence. When the 
Elks dedicated their cemetery at Long Island Mr. 
Beecher said that he was glad to accept the invitation 
to deliver the dedicatory address, and his speech was 
a logical demonstration of the sympathy between the 
stage and the church. Later, he took an active, 
personal interest in the dramatization of his novel 
" Norwood," and, in or out of the pulpit, he was never 
chary of his praises of deserving professionals. 
It 



CHAPTER XIII. 



JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 



Many anecdotes of these years are told of the great 
Brooklyn divine. 

One of Mr. Beecher's hobbies was jewelry. He 
never wore jewelry, but he had a great taste for it, 
and had more than one cabinet full of unique and 
curious gems and pieces of jewelry. At one time he 
had a habit of carrying loose diamonds and other 
precious stones in his vest pocket, wrapped up in the 
tissue paper in which dealers usually carry them. Mr. 
Beecher had excellent taste also in the selection of 
engravings, of which he was quite as fond as he was 
of jewelry. He had his house at Peekskill papered 
with old and rare engravings; even the walls of the 
halls and the backs of the doors were covered with 
them. Mr. McKelway thought that the collection of 
old engravings was probably the finest in the country, 
and that it would bring $20,000 at a sale. He valued 
Beecher's gems at $15,000. 

" Once," said a well known sporting man, " I 
thought, like most people who have a penchant for gems, 
that opals were unlucky. Henry Ward Beecher con- 
162 



JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 163 

verted me out of that superstition. I was in Wash- 
ington at the time, flat broke, and scarce knew which 
way to turn for a dollar. A friend invited me to go 
and hear the great preacher deliver a lecture. Under 
ordinary circumstances I suppose I should have re- 
fused the invitation, since I was never much of a hand 
at sitting still and being talked at, but I went, and my 
attendance that evening proved the turning point of 
my ill luck. Mr. Beecher was in one of his happiest 
moods. He alluded to his fondness of jewelry and 
precious stones, and said that, although he rarely wore 
them, he never traveled without some rich and rare 
gems in his pockets. ' They exercise a soothing influ- 
ence over my mind when it is troubled,' continued the 
great divine ; ' they bring joy and inspiration to my 
heart. I remember once when traveling in Germany 
of being gloomy and distressed to an unusual degree. 
I thought I had not a friend in the world. The future 
seemed dark, dreary and dismal, and do what I would 
I could not dissipate the gloom which overshadowed 
my heart. Unconsciously my hands went deep into 
my trousers' pockets, where I had some very fine opals. 
I at once felt a pleasant sensation flash across me. I 
drew forth the opals, placed them on the table and 
looked at them contemplatively. In a moment my 
dejection vanished, the blues were dispelled and I was 
happy and contented as a lark. Do not ask me to 



164 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

explain this mysterious influence. All I know is that 
precious stones of all kinds wield a potent influence 
over my moods and temper, and that opals, perhaps 
beyond any other gems, bring comfort and solace to 
my soul.' This incident made a great impression on 
me. The day after the lecture I came unexpectedly 
into the possession of a respectable sum of money, 
and my first act was to buy this opal, which I have 
worn ever since. I can not say that I feel any magic 
influence from it such as Mr. Beecher described, but 
one thing is certain, that I have never known a day's 
real bad luck since I started to wear it." 

Henry Ward Beecher earned several fortunes dur- 
ing his lifetime, but did not keep any of them. He 
spent his princely income generously in trying to make 
himself and others happy, and he came as near realiz- 
ing the fulfillment of this desire as it is possible for 
human weakness to do. Out of his own purse he paid 
for two years the entire interest on the mortgage under 
which struggled the Park Congregational Church, at 
Sixth avenue and Seventh street, Brooklyn. The 
members of that church having thus been enabled to 
start in on raising money to clear the debt of $17,000, 
raised $11,000 and could do no more. Mr. Beecher 
submitted the case to his Trustees and said if they 
didn't pay the remaining $6,000 he would do it him- 



JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 165 

self. They agreed to do it, and he contributed gen- 
erously for that purpose, thus clearing off the debt. 

He was forever aiding his friends, lending them 
money, indorsing their notes, getting them qut of 
troubles, and bearing their burdens. He was indis- 
cretion itself in the management of his pecuniary 
affairs, and, although he was comically " careful at the 
spigot, he was largely lavish at the bung." In fact, 
Mr. Beecher seemed to have no idea of the value of 
money except what he could get for it. He once said 
in his pulpit that if he had $100 in bills he could not 
count it and make it come out twice alike. When he 
saw anything he wanted, whether it was a picture, a 
precious stone, a book, or a piece of bric-a-brac, and he 
had the money, he bought it. Then, if any one took 
a fancy to it, he would give it away. No one ever 
knew how much money he gave away in private bene- 
factions, and many persons miss his unobtrusive 
charity. One of his acts was to send two barrows- 
ful of books from his library to the church as the nu- 
cleus of a collection for the benefit of the Western 
branch of the Soldiers' Home at Leavenworth, Kansas. 
He would never have saved anything if it had not been 
for his wife, who looked after his affairs. When in 
Brooklyn since the house in Columbia Heights was 
sold they boarded with their eldest son. The summers 
they spent at Peekskill. Mr. Beecher used to say that 



166 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

his farm there cost him more than it paid, and one 
summer he told some visitors that the potatoes they 
ate cost him a dollar apiece to grow. 

Writing to a friend Mrs. Beecher alludes to the 
" two or three bushels of letters " that had accumulated 
during Mr. Beecher' s vacation, and exclaims: 

" 0, that the whole world could know that we are 
poor, poor — poor in everything but the ability to 
grieve for woes we have not the power to aid. From N 
the letters I have classed as genuine I find that the 
sums so pitifully pleaded for aggregate over $30,000." 
Kef erring to this subject in another letter, she says: 
" What can I do but half break my heart over sor- 
rows that my dear husband could not alleviate were 
they known to him. It would make him ill to read 
the letters. This suffering I can spare him." 

Mr. Beecher was wonderfully fond of children, and 
he always carried oranges and candies in his pockets 
to help entertain them on the cars. If lie saw a poor 
mother with a baby crying in her arms he would go 
and comfort it and make it stop its crying where others 
failed. In coming up from Washington one time a 
characteristic incident occurred. There were two little 
children, boy and girl, eight or nine years old in the 
car, and they huddled close up together and appeared 
to be very fond of each other. He had breakfast at 
Wilmington, but the children did not get off the car, 



JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 167 

and they had evidently traveled all night without any- 
thing to eat. When Mr. Beecher came back from 
breakfast his arms were laden with good things for 
the children. Then he talked to them. He found 
that they were from the South, that their parents had 
died, and that they were on their way to this city to 
find an uncle whom they expected to meet them. The 
train was late; what if the uncle should fail to meet 
them? When the train arrived in Jersey City Mr. 
Beecher got out of the car with the children, walked 
slowly along, looking around to see if he could dis- 
cover any one looking for the children, and got out be- 
tween the two ferries and stood there waiting until 
both boats had gone. Soon a man came hurrying 
along in great distress and saw the two children, but 
as he expected to find them unaccompanied, he stopped 
in doubt. Mr. Beecher suspected that he might be 
the uncle and asked him what he was looking for. 

" Two children." 

" Well," said Mr. Beecher, " I guess they're here. 
These look like two children, don't they ? " 

It was the uncle, and he was indeed grateful. 
Thanking Mr. Beecher, he said: 

" Will you kindly give me your name?" 

"My name is Beecher." 

"Where do you live?" 

" In Brooklyn." 



168 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" What ! Can you be the Eev. Henry Ward 
Beecher?" 

"I am inclined to think I am." 

Tears came into the man's eyes, and he explained 
to the little ones who it was who had befriended them. 
The two children soon after were seen in Plymouth 
Church, and they have since then listened to Mr. 
Beecher' s sermons frequently. 

Major Pond's attention was called to the statement 
which had been published, and which has been 
received with general credence, that Mr. Beecher never 
wore a silk hat. Mr. Beecher' s manager smiled and then 
quickly exclaimed: " Only once. I must tell you about 
that. I was at Mr. Beecher' s house one afternoon, 
and Ave were to leave the house at 4 o'clock in order to 
catch a train. Mr. Beecher, according to his custom 
of an afternoon, had laid down for a nap. I was in 
the library, when, as the hour approached, Mrs. 
Beecher called my attention to the fact and asked 
where Mr. Beecher was. I went up to call him, 
but he was not in his room. I went down stairs and 
thought I would get my hat, which was a silk one. I 
could not find it where I had left it, in the hallway. 
Just then Mrs. Beecher called my attention to the 
front of the house. Mr. Beecher had a cardigan 
jacket, which he used to wear around the house at 
times, and you can imagine that it was not particularly 



JEWELBY AND HOBBIES. 171 

becoming to his form. I went to where Mrs. Beecher 
stood and looked out. There in the middle of the 
street, with a lot of children around him, was Mr. 
Beecher in his cardigan, my silk hat on his head, and 
a stick in his mouth, with strings attached, as children 
make bits, and he was prancing up and down and back 
and forth, and playing horse with the youngsters. 
You would have died a laughing seeing that sight. 

" ' Henry,' exclaimed Mrs. Beecher, ' what on earth 
are you doing ? Do you know what a sight you are ? 
You will lose the train.' 

" Mr. Beecher stopped, drew out his watch — he 
always carried a first-class timekeeper — and, replying, 
as he put it back. 

"'No, I won't; I've got two minutes yet,' off he 
galloped, with the children at his heels in high 
glee. He used up the two minutes, and we just 
caught the ferryboat in time. Many a time have we 
barely caught the last boat; but Mr. Beecher' s watch 
was as true as steel, and he always calculated appar- 
ently to the second. When he got on the ferryboat he 
never stopped until he landed in the pilot house. He 
had the key to them, and every pilot knew him,, and 
there he would go and stay until the boat had got to 
her landing." 

There were few sharper men at repartee than Mr. 
Beecher. There were few livelier places than Plymouth 



172 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHER. 

Lecture Room on Friday nights. Mr. Beecher treated 
his people as he did his family. He sat in his chair 
as cozily as he did at his fireside, and said any racy, 
jolly thing that came into his mind. When any one 
bored him with a long speech, he brought them up 
with a round turn. If they retorted, he brought the 
laugh upon them, and they sat down covered with con- 
fusion. Very few Plymouth people tried a retort with 
their pastor. 

A very venerable ana soiemn aeacon was one night 
pronouncing a funeral oration over the past members 
of the church. 

"I was recalling," he said (and this was uttered in 
a very whining and solemn tone), '"the large number 
of people who used to take part in this meeting, who 
are now dead. I have the names of thirty or forty at 
home, written in a hymn book, I think. Mr. Beecher, 
by yourself." Mr. Beecher sprang up, and said: 
"There! I missed that hymn book, but I did not 

think, Deacon , you had stolen it. Won't you 

send it back? " 

A general laugh ran around the room, and the 
deacon suddenly terminated his funeral oration. 

One Friday night, while the congregation were 
singing a beautiful hymn, in which Mr. Beecher was 
joining heartily, the assistant minister came up, 



JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 173 

arrested the pastor's attention by pulling his pants, 
and handed him a note. 

At the close of the hymn Mr. Beecher rebuked the 
irreverence that grew out of a defective education, 
which did not regard singing as a part of devotion, 
which took the time of song for opening and shutting 
windows, rushing round and doing chores generally. 

Even ministers would use that time to scribble 
their notes, look over their sermons, or call up the 
sexton and send him around the church on errands. 

He then read very impressively two verses of the 
hymn they were singing when he was interrupted, to 
show that it was really a prayer. 

"Had I been making a prayer, and Brother 

had come and twitched my pants and handed me a 
note, the whole congregation would have been 
shocked." 

To ward off the blow, Brother said, "Mr. 

Beecher, I hadn't any hymn book." 

"And you hadn't any prayer book," was the quick 
retort, which the people relished keenly. 

Mr. Beecher kept a reporter in his church. The 
form of Mr. Ellenwood was as well known as that of 
the Plymouth pastor. He sat for years at a little 
table in front of the platform, and took down every- 
thing that Mr. Beecher said — his notices, prayers and 
sermons. These Mr. Beecher revised before they were 



Ill ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

published. Sharp, racy, humorous utterances, keen 
remarks, sentences thrown off in the heat of speaking, 
witticisms that shook the Plymouth audiences as the 
forest leaves are shaken by the winds, were often 
missed in the public report. 

Many of the illustrations lost much of their point, 
because no reporter could take down the manner of 
their utterance. 

His familiar illustrations were drawn from his own 
family, and these were constant. 

One Sunday morning he brought his stepmother on 
to the platform by describing her as a woman of great 
excellence, but as a great martinet, strict in her relig- 
ious practices and teachings, and, like the mistress of 
Dotheboys Hall, she gave her children weekly a stiff 
dose of the catechism. She was the pink of propriety, 
and held in abhorrence all vain and trifling amuse- 
ments. 

Dr. Beecher had a weakness — that of playing on a 
fiddle. He mixed up "Yankee Doodle," a round 
country dance, and " Old Hundred," and he did not 
exactly know where the one began and the other 
ended. 

One day he was amusing himself on his favorite 
instrument, and struck up a genuine jig, which, 
unsanctified, had been running in his head ever since 
he was a boy. 






JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 175 

Just at that moment the mother came in, and, 
catching the inspiration of the tune, placed her 
hands on her hips and actually danced a minuet. 

Mr. Beecher described the scene. He stepped back 
on the platform, placed his hands on his hips, and 
showed the audience how his mother did it. He 
described the consternation of the children. He 
clasped his hands, rolled up the whites of his eyes like 
a regular maw-worm, opened his mouth, drew down his 
lips, and stood the personification of rustic horror. 

The whole scene was irresistibly comic. He wound 
up with the moral that, if his mother had danced 
more and plied the catechism less, he would have had 
a happier childhood. 

On one occasion a stranger, upon meeting Mr. 
Beecher, and doubtless feeling awe-struck in having 
spoken to a man who seemed to know so much about 
the hereafter, said: " Mr. Beecher. do you really know 
our Lord? " 

" Well," Mr. Beecher replied with twinkling eyes, 
" I have had occasion to speak favorably of him from 
.my pulpit." 

" Mr. Beecher was preaching one day about the 
mercies of God toward all penitent men, when sud- 
denly there was heard the chink chink of falling glass 
and the patter of a stone that had been thrown through 
the window. Mr. Beecher was interrupted in his 



176 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WA11D BEECHER. 

preaching at the words, ' Let the mercies of God come 
to all good men ' — and, as he heard the noise of the 
shattered glass, he added, ' and to miscreants, too. 1 " 

According to Mr. Edward R. Ovington, of Brook- 
lyn, Mr. Beecher was a great admirer of beauty in 
bric-a-brac, although he never leaned toward marble 
or bronze statuary. 

" I don't know why it was," said Mr. Ovington, 
" but Mr. Beecher would never look at a statue. I 
reckon it was too cold. He loved pictures and vases 
and articles of the smaller decorative style. He would 
come into my store nearly every day and take in a 
stock at a glance. There was no use trying to per- 
suade him that a thing was lovely. He would know 
at once whether he liked it or not. And everybody 
loved him. He would sit for ten and fifteen minutes 
at a time and talk with the salesman. A dozen other 
ministers might have come in and not have been 
noticed. He would never allow a purchase to be 
wrapped in paper, and would carry home whatever he 
bought under his arm. Sometimes he would go home 
with some big, bulky thing that he could hardly 
carry/' 

" Being a somewhat elderly man, I became a little 
prominent in the Bethel Sunday school," said Professor 
Brainerd Kellogg, of the Polytechnic, " and it got to 






JEWELRY AND HOBBIES. 177 

Mr. Beecher's ears, that I was a little too radical. Mr. 
Beecher came to me and said: 

" Kellogg, don't pull off more shingles than you 
can replace." 

Mr. Beecher was not particularly happy in address- 
ing Sunday schools, and I believe the reason of that to 
be that he felt the necessity of brevity, and prepara- 
tion with him demanded foundation, division and sub- 
division. He believed in the root and the trunk and 
the twig before he got to the leaf. The root might be 
recondite, the trunk short and sturdy, the branch thin 
and brittle, the twig a simple film, but the leaves were 
for the healing of the nations. He absolutely blos- 
somed with illustrations. He thought in figures. He 
reasoned in pictures. Why, I remember distinctly, at 
one time, having reported him; he made use of the 
term, " And in his hand a diamond sceptre." Laugh- 
ingly I corrected him and said: " Of course there is 
no such thing as a diamond sceptre, Mr. Beecher." 
" What," said he, "I guess I know what I saw/' No 
better illustration than that could be asked of his habit 
of thought. 
13 



CHAPTEK XIV. 

DISTRESSING EPISODE. 

It was wnen his fame and influence were at their 
zenith, and at the very height of the usefulness of his 
church, that the most distressing episode in Mr. 
Beecher's life, both for him and his friends, occurred. 
At a time when men of character, intelligence, and 
piety hung upon his words, when the most cultured 
classes of the country accepted him as their guide, 
when the first place as a preacher and an orator was 
accorded to him on all hands, and when his writings 
were eagerly read from one end of the land to the 
other, a formidable assault was made upon his reputa- 
tion. At first, vague hints were circulated reflecting 
upon him, then a direct charge appeared in print, but 
not in a quarter to which the people looked for reliable 
information. Finally, in an action at law, brought by 
Theodore Tilton against Mr. Beecher, with a claim for 
$100,000 damages, the whole case was disclosed, and 
for six months the malice of scoffers at Christianity 
was gratified by the details of the terrible accusation 
against the pastor of Plymouth Church. Three 
times did Mr. Beecher meet his accusers, and three 



A DISTRESSING EPISODE. 179 

times the charge was investigated. First it was heard 
by a committee of the church, appointed at Mr. 
Beech er's request, and the committee pronounced the 
pastor innocent. 

Afterward it was tried in court, when the jury dis- 
agreed, and thirdly by a council of Congregational 
ministers. 

Undoubtedly this clouded experience of his life was 
a cause of reproach not only to Mr. Beecher but to re- 
ligion. That it would be so if it was made public, 
whatever the issue might be, Mr. Beecher and his 
friends had forseen from the first, and unhappily, in 
attempting to prevent its coming to trial, they actually 
prejudiced the case, and their efforts to keep it from 
the public were regarded as an admission of guilt. 
It was a noteworthy fact that Theodore Tilton, who 
brought the charge, was a protege of Mr. Beecher' s, a 
man possessing undoubted talent, a sphere for the 
exercise of which had been provided by Mr. Beecher. 

Its most disastrous effect was upon Mr. Beecher 
himself. It aged him, and, to some extent, it broke 
his spirit. His sensitive nature was not proof against 
the feeling that some suspected him. 

The fidelity of Plymouth Church to its pastor 
during this fierce ordeal, the love and sympathy of his 
wife, and the unfaltering allegiance of a host of 
friends in this country and in Europe encouraged and 



180 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD EEECHER. 

supported liini to continue his pastorate and public 
work. His gospel cheered and instructed, it built 
up and made strong; and whatever were his mistakes, 
whatever his possible errors, the charity he had sent 
abroad returned upon him to comfort him, and the 
tolerance he had shown was in turn shown unto him. 
He passed through trial and came forth purified for 
better service than before. He learned in personal 
anguish how to enlarge compassion, and, conscious of 
frailties in himself, he extended a vast pity to the 
infirmities of others. 

Dr. Armitage, one of Mr. Beecher's life long 
friends, asked him shortly after the trial: " Beecher, 
how have you managed to live through it?" His eyes 
filled with tears, and, with half-choked utterance, he 
said, "Armitage, I could not have lived through it if 
the Lord had not strengthened the back for the bur- 
den. Sometimes I thought I must sink, but I said, 
' Lord, here is my heart ; whatever others may say, I 
know I am thine.' " 

The great friendship that has always existed be- 
tween Mr. Beecher and the Rev. Dr. Charles N. Hall, 
of Holy Trinity, has been a favorite theme of discus- 
sion among Brooklyn pastors, and the following 
incident shows the depth of that feeling: During the 
trial a celebration of some kind was being held in Dr. 
Hall's church. To the surprise of the strict Episco- 



A DISTRESSING EPISODE. 183 

palians., Mr. Beecher attended, and to their horror was 
admitted behind the chancel rail. This provoked an 
expression of indignation from some of the members, 
who carried their grievances to Dr. Hall. That gen- 
tleman drew himself lip to his full height and in- 
quired, "What have you to say about it? Mr. 
Beecher is not convicted; he is only on trial; and I 
reserve the right to extend the right hand of fellow- 
ship to any man who needs it or deserves it. He is 
my friend, and what kind of a man is he who will not 
in time of trouble help his friend? What have you to 
say against it?" 

"But the Bishop; what will he say?" asked the 
indignant members. 

Dr. Hall's face grew blacker than ever. "The 
Bishop," he said; "what business is it of his? What 
right has the Bishop to interfere with my private 
affairs?" 

Mr. Beecher remained, and the only comment of 
the indignant members was, "Well, Dr. Hall is the 
only man who could do that, and Mr. Beecher is the 
only one who could make him do it." 

The country has not forgotten, and never can forget, 
how like a heroine Mrs. Beecher behaved during her hus- 
band's supreme trouble. Throughout the whole pro- 
longed and humiliating trial, everybody knew she was 
constantly present in the court room, attentive but un- 



184 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WAKD BEECHER. 

dismayed, pained to the last point of endurance, but still 
erect, steadfast and confident. It was not merely her 
husband's reputation, we must remember, but her own 
honor as well, and the highest interests of her chil- 
dren, living and dead, that were threatened with dis- 
aster. The tales to which she had to listen were of a 
kind which few women could have heard and yet stood 
firm and self-reliant, as she did— a picture of a wife 
and mother at her best, of womanhood at its proudest 
and noblest. If she had wavered for an instant, the 
scales might have turned to the swift and absolute ruin 
of the man for whom her remarkable devotion pleaded 
with such persistent and pathetic emphasis. Though 
she said never a word, she was Mr. Beecher's most 
valuable witness. He might, perhaps, have survived 
the terrible ordeal if she had been absent; but cer- 
tainly the task would have been a much harder one, 
and there is reason to believe that he was himself 
convinced that the aid she rendered him was exceed- 
ingly fortunate, if not indispensable. 

It is our custom, in these days of much dwelling 
upon the practical side of things, to speak lightly of 
the sentiment of love as the ruling force of a life; but 
every now and then we are brought face to face with a 
woman like Mrs. Beecher, whose fidelity to her hus- 
band shames our flippancy and compels us to recog- 
nize the fact that there is such a virtue as complete 



A DISTRESSING EPISODE. 185 

devotion for devotion's sake, regardless of all hin- 
drances. That there are many such women in the 
world, we are bound to believe; and they contribute 
far more to the success of the men whose fortunes 
engage their thoughts and efforts than we are apt to 
acknowledge or understand. They do not advertise 
their faithfulness or ask to be commended or rewarded 
for their ceaseless care, courage and fortitude. It is 
enough for them to know that the objects of their 
affection are enabled, by their help, to overcome the 
obstacles which fate puts in their way, and to achieve 
a degree of prosperity which vindicates their ability 
and satisfies their ambition. For themselves they 
claim nothing. It is in others that they seek and find 
triumph and happiness. To do their utmost for those 
whom they love and trust is their philosophy of exist- 
ence; and they live their lives with a royal and beau- 
tiful perseverance which, as in the case of Mrs. 
Beecher, deserves the highest praise that language 
can be made to express. 

In letters written in 1882, Mrs. Beecher speaks of the 
trying times growing out of this trouble, their own 
poverty, and Mr. Beecher' s arduous duties. These 
letters prove her sublime self-abnegation. 

On Feb. 8, 1881, she wrote: 

" You should see the immense pile of unopened let- 
ters before me, the punishment for a two days' absence 



186 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

from the city. Nearly nine-tenths are addressed to 
Mr. Beecher, but he never reads letters unless there is 
some matter that he alone can decide. Such is not 
often the case. Thousands come to us that he never 
sees. Consequently they do not trouble his brain or, 
what would be more serious, grieve his tender heart. 
All correspondence is left to me, one of the cheer- 
fully-accepted but onerous duties of being the wife 
of such a man." 

June 7, 1882, she wrote: 

"The pitiless blackmail persecution to which my 
husband was subjected a few years ago turned our 
heads white before our time, and nearly broken my 
heart at least. That trial cost us $160,000. We were 
not worth $60,000. The impression seems to be gen- 
eral that he is a wealthy man. He never was, but 
when comfortably well off his overflowing generosity 
enabled him to lay by nothing of any amount. Some- 
times, now, if I do not discreetly purloin the contents 
of his too liberal pockets, the household expense would 
remain unpaid. He can not help returning moneyless 
because of the tales of woe that seem to lie in wait for 
him upon every street. Since that terrible trial he has 
worked incessantly to the detriment of his health, 
preaching, lecturing, writing, hoping to lift the heavy 
mortgage fi'om our home here (Columbia Heights, 
Brooklyn), but it had to be sold in the spring." 



A DISTKESSING EPISODE. 187 

In a letter written in December, 1882, she speaks 
once more of that " infamous blackmail scheme," and 
adds: " I am confident that history will refer to it as 
the most cruel and conscienceless of this or any other 
century." 

With quaint humor, which was always characteristic 
of the man, he compared the unceasing efforts of his 
friends on his behalf as " the humane attempt of good 
men to drag an ass out of a piV 



CHAPTER XV. 

LECTURING TOUR. 

Mr. Beecher had passed through the ordeal of his 
life, and thereafter for twelve years he has been 
watched as no man before or since has been held up to 
public gaze. At first his public appearances were lim- 
ited to his own pulpit, and he seemed to seek relief in 
activity, physical and mental. He went on a long tour 
through the South, speaking at many points, and gen- 
erally acting as a bearer of peace tokens from the 
North and an observer of the progress of the South. 

Though the authenticity of the following story has 
been questioned, we will venture to give it. If true, 
it is one of the most dramatic events in the oratorical 
career of Mr. Beecher. While in Richmond, the 
announcement that he was to lecture at Mozart Hall 
on " The North and the South " filled the old building. 
It was his first appearance in Richmond since the war, 
and he was rather doubtful about the kind of reception 
he would get. When he walked out on the stage he 
saw before him a distinguished audience of Southern- 
ers, including several of the leading generals on the 
losing side. In the fourth row of the orchestra sat 
188 



LECTURING TOUE. 189 

General Fitzhugh Lee and, just behind him, General 
Eosser, while near by were ex-Governor " Extra Billy " 
Smith and Governor Cameron. No applause greeted 
the great preacher as he stepped before the footlights. 
The ladies levelled their opera glasses at him with 
cold curiosity and the men looked coolly expectant. 
Some hisses from a few rowdies in the gallery did not 
tend to dispel the chilliness of the reception. 

Mr. Beecher surveyed the audience calmly for a 
moment and then stepping directly in front of General 
Lee he said, " I have seen pictures of General Fitz- 
hugh Lee, and I judge that you are the man; am I 
right?" 

The general, slightly taken aback by this direct 
address, nodded stiffly, while the audience bent for- 
ward breathless with curiosity as to what was going to 
follow. 

" Then," said Mr. Beecher, his face lighting up, 
" I want to offer you this right hand, which, in its own 
way, fought against you and yours twenty -five years 
ago, but which I would now willingly sacrifice to make 
the sunny South prosperous and happy. Will you 
take it, General? " 

There was a moment's hesitation, a moment of 
death-like stillness in the hall, and then Fitzhugh Lee 
was on his feet, his hand was extended across the foot- 



190 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

lights and was quickly met by the warm grasp of the 
preacher's. 

At first there was a murmur, half of surprise and 
half of doubtfulness from the audience, then there 
was a hesitating clapping of hands, and before Beecher 
had unloosed the hand of Kobert E. Lee's nephew 
— now Governor of Virginia — there were cheers such 
as were never before heard in old Mozart, though it 
had been the scene of many a war and political meet- 
ing. 

But that was only the beginning of the enthu- 
siasm. 

When the noise subsided Mr. Beecher contin- 
ued: — " When I go back home I shall proudly tell that 
I have grasped the hand of the nephew of the great 
Southern chieftain; I shall tell my people that I went 
to the Confederate capital with a heart full of love for 
the people whom my principles once obliged me to 
oppose, and that I was met half way by the brave 
Southerners, who can forgive as well as they can fight. " 

Five minutes of applause followed, and then Mr. 
Beecher, having gained the hearts of his audience, 
began his lecture, and was applauded to the echo. That 
night he entered his carriage and drove to his hotel 
amid shouts such as had never greeted a Northern man 
in Bichmond since the war. 

He went into military matters in a quiet way, and 






LECTUKING T0U11. 191 

since 1878, as the Chaplain of the Thirteenth Regi- 
ment of Brooklyn, has had opportunity to say much to 
the young men of the country. He lectured in short 
courses through the country each year. 

Mr. Mumford, who planned Mr. Beecher's great 
lecturing trip West, said: 

" It was the most memorable lecture trip ever made. 
I was then one of the managers of the American Lit- 
erary Bureau, at Cooper Institute, New York, and our 
correspondents in the large cities often besought us to 
secure Mr. Beecher for them, but to all overtures he 
turned a deaf ear. He had not been West for 
twelve or fourteen years. Some of the large cities 
in the West he had never seen at all. In the 
East he had lectured very seldom, and was not 
considered " in the lecture field." At last we con- 
cluded to make him an offer which would startle 
him into acceptance if anything could have that effect, 
so we sent him a written proposal to pay him $10,000 
for two weeks of time. Still we hardly expected a re- 
ply, for it was his habit to take no notice of business 
letters making proposals which he could not accept, 
and acceptance was hardly looked for. When his re- 
ply came there was commotion in the office. It said 
that he had special use just then for a little more than 
$10,000, and if we would make it $12,000, and pay all 
his expenses, he would give us three weeks instead of 



192 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

two, simply stipulating that we should get him to 
Brooklyn on the morning of the third Saturday, so 
that he could rest and prepare for Sunday. To this 
we readily agreed, and the bargain was made. I started 
out to lay the route, and, having finished it, went over 
the ground a second time, to see that all instructions 
were carried out. Mr. Brelsford, who joined the silent 
majority some years ago, accompanied Mr. Beecher. 
The route was: Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Cleveland, 
Cincinnati, Louisville, Cincinnati again, Indianapolis, 
St. Louis two nights, Peoria, Milwaukee, Chicago two 
nights, Toledo, Detroit, Kochester. We treated Mr. 
Beecher the best we knew how, and the expense to us 
amounted to about $1,100 per night. But we had 
faith in it, and made no effort to sell the lectures. We 
did sell five — two in Chicago to Carpenter & Sheldon 
for $2,500, one to the Y. M. C. A. of Toledo for $1,200, 
one to the Excelsior Boat Club of Detroit for $1,250, 
and one to C. R Gardner, then of Milwaukee, for 
$1,000. All to whom we sold made money, unless it 
may have been Mr. Gardner; I am not sure about him. 
Our net profit on the trip was $5,500. The losing 
nights were the first and the last— Harrisburg and 
Kochester." 

Once, when Mr. Beecher was speaking on Commun- 
ism, in Chicago, a rather dramatic and very character- 
istic thing happened. His lecture was half finished. 










Henry Ward Beecher at the Age of Sixty. 



193 



LECTURING TOUR. 195 

He was standing before an audience of 10,000 people 
in the old Tabernacle Building, a temporary structure 
on Franklin street, put up to accommodate the vast 
audiences which thronged in those days to hear Moody 
and Sankey, then in the heyday of their early work 
and enthusiasm. The great room was packed. 
Beecher rolled out sentence after sentence in his most 
telling manner. Word after word fell forcibly upon 
the vast crowd, which grew more and more silent as he 
went on. A reporter at the table down in front of the 
platform dropped a lead pencil, and one could almost 
feel the noise that it made, so breathlessly were all in 
that audience listening to the orator's voice. He was 
telling the story of the rise of the power of the people. 
Presently he ended a ringing period with these words, 
pronounced in a voice so deep and fervid and full 
of conviction that they seemed to have been uttered 
then for the first time: " The voice of the people is the 
voice of God." 

Into the absolute and intense silence of the instant 
that followed fell the voice of a half-drunken man in 
the gallery: "The voice of the people is the voice of 
a fool." 

Everybody fairly shivered. But Beecher was equal 
to the moment. He drew himself up, looked toward 
the place from whence the disturbing voice came, and 
" I said the voice of the people, not the voice of 



196 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

oue man," he replied, with perfect simplicity and 
dignity. 

It would be impossible to describe the responsive 
expression of the audience. It was not a laugh, it was 
not a cheer. It was a movement, a sound like one 
great sigh of relief and delight. The lecture went on ; 
the an was full of electric sympathy, tingling toward 
an explosion of some sort. Beecher knew it, and 
seemed waiting for a chance to put his finger on the 
key of the pent-up personal enthusiasm which moved 
his audience. The drunken fellow suddenly gave him a 
chance. He staggered to his feet, feeling that the 
odds were against him, and mumbled out some unin- 
telligible words. Beecher paused a second time in his 
lecture. Then he said with that smile of his, at once 
winniug and condemning, which so many people know: 
"Will some kind person take our friend out and give 
him some cold water — plenty of it — within and with- 
out?" Two policemen had hold of the disturber by 
this time, and the audience had liberty to cheer — and 
such a cheer as it was! The tabernacle shook with it, 
and it is probable that at least nine-tenths of the 
people who clapped their hands supposed that they 
were cheering Mr. Beecher' s wit, instead of that 
tremendous personal power which no one need try to 
analyze. 

An incident, illustrative of Mr. Beecher' s amiabil- 



LECTURING TOUR. 197 

ity, bonhomie and ready wit, is told by a Chicago 
reporter: "I had been sent to the Pacific to inter- 
view him. He had gone out, and a number of repor- 
ters were hanging around the office with the same 
object in view. Presently I saw him enter the Clark 
Street door, and I flew toward him, determined to 
engage him before any other reporter knew of his 
arrival. I understood his disposition very well, and 
knew how to take him. I said: 

" Mr. Beecher, I am a reporter, and I — " 

"Ah!" he said, "I thought you were a very good- 
looking young man." 

" Now, Mr. Beecher," I said, in breathless haste, 
" I desire to roll the wheel of conversation around the 
axle-tree of your understanding for awhile." 

"I see," he replied, earnestly. "You wish to un- 
wind the thread of thought from the spool of my 
mind." 

Having got started in this sort of fun, it was sev- 
eral minutes before I could switch him off on the 
track of business, and in the course of this agreeable 
prelude he said, with an expressive gesture, that he 
always thought " in pictures." During the interview 
he evinced the most childlike simplicity, humility and 
good-will. I remember that he had occasion to refer 
to some recent insulting- references to him in the 



198 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

papers, and added, " But there is so much of that 
sort of thing that a little more or less does not mat- 
ter." 

A Southern friend gives the following reminiscence : 
"Mr. Beecher was lecturing at Lynchburg, Va., and 
came to the hotel where I was stopping. He seemed 
to have some difficulty with the committee which had 
invited him. He was to lecture on ' Evolution and 
Revolution,' but as I understood him the committee 
said the people of Lynchburg were so orthodox that 
they would listen to nothing respecting evolution or 
Darwinism. He changed the title to ' The Reign 
of the Common People,' but it was the same lecture. 

" I offered to introduce him to the audience. He 
asked if I was popular in Lynchburg. I told him I 
was quite as popular there as he was before he voted 
for Cleveland. So he thought, he said, but I had not 
considered his topic. I suggested I could explain the 
physical evolution theory to a country audience by the 
tadpole turning to a frog, but that when I came to 
mental evolution I should take his case and show what 
terrible throes of nature were required to make so 
good a Republican into the imperfect Mugwump. He 
was fond of humor, declined my proffered services, but 
asked me to sit on the platform." 

Mr. Beecher' s writing Was kept up at this time 
without intermission. Few persons know what an 



LECTURING TOUR. 199 

immense amount of literary work he accomplished. 
The following is a list of the published works: Ser- 
mons, ten volumes, of 475 pp. each; Sermons, four 
volumes, of 600 pp. each; "A Summer Parish," 240 
pp.; " Yale Lectures on Preaching," first, second and 
third series; "Lectures to Young Men," 500 pp.; 
" Star Papers," 600 pp. ; " Pleasant Talk About Fruits, 
Flowers and Farming," 498 pp. ; " Lecture Koom 
Talks," 384 pp.; "Norwood; or, Village Life in New 
England," 549 pp.; "The Overtures of Angels,"; 
"Eyes and Ears; or, Thoughts as they Occur;" 
" Freedom and War; " " Eoyal Truths; " " Views and 
Experiences of Religious Subjects;" and the unfin- 
ished "Life of Jesus Christ." 

Of his literary tastes Mr. Beecher has himself 
given an idea: "I read for three things; first, to 
know what the world has done in the last twenty-four 
hours, and is about to do to-day; second, for the 
knowledge which I especially want to use in my work; 
and thirdly, for what will bring my mind into a 
proper mood. Amongst the authors which I fre- 
quently read are De Tocqueville, Matthew Arnold, 
Mme. Guyon, and Thomas a Kempis. I gather my 
knowledge of current thought from books and periodi- 
cals and from conversation with men, from whom I get 
much that can not be learned in any other way. I am 
a very slow reader. I never read for style. I should 



200 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

urge reading history. My study of Milton has given 
me a conception of power and vigor which I otherwise 
should not have had. I got fluency out of Burke very 
largely, and I obtained the sense of adjectives out of 
Barrow, besides the sense of exhaustiveness." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 

In social life Mr. Beecher was always bright and 
cheery, and he appeared doubly happy in his own 
home. 

Nothing pleased him better than to see the younger 
members of his congregation grow up, marry, and 
bring their children to the baptismal font. It de- 
lighted him to be called " Father Beecher " by the 
members of his church and congregation. 

During the winter Mr. Beecher lived in Brooklyn 
with his eldest son, Henry Barton Beecher. All his 
children were married and settled in homes of their own. 
They are William Beecher, Mrs. Scoville, Herbert 
Beecher, and Henry Barton Beecher. 

Mr. Beecher was for many years a sufferer from 
hay-fever, and spent his summers for a long time in 
the White Mountains. He was a noted figure at the 
Twin Mountain House, and one of the mountain pools 
near by, into which he fell one day, has been known 
in the guide-books as " Beecher' s Pool." In the last 
few years the hay-fever seemed to leave him, and he 
had spent most of his summers since 1880 at his 
201 



202 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Peekskill country house. From his fullness of habit 
and temperament apoplexy had long been feared by 
his physicians. 

" Naturally enough," said a friend of Mr. Beecher, 
" he was frequently present at public dinners, and a 
singular feature of his conduct on such occasions was 
his total abstinence from the solid and liquid good 
cheer set before him. Just fancy the stoicism and 
self-denial involved in a man of Beecher' s enthusiastic 
temperament, sitting through a long dinner, and wait- 
ing patiently for the time to come when he should 
share in the intellectual part of it. I have seen him 
occasionally drink a little water at a banquet, but be- 
yond that indulgence he never went." 

" He stopped here once in my house when he was 
in this city," said a Washington friend, " for a day or 
two. I remember that he sat at my desk and wrote an 
article for the Ledger. When he sat down he took an 
old shawl of mine and wrapped it about his feet and 
legs, saying that he could not write unless his legs 
were warm. Some physician speaks of his doing this 
lately, and noted it as a sign that he was breaking. It 
was twelve or fifteen years ago that he was at my 
house, and he was then iu vigorous health. Years be- 
fore that, before I knew him personally, I met him on 
a train between Portland and Boston, and he then had 



AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 203 

his feet thrust into a sealskin bag made for the pur- 
pose. That seemed to have been a habit of his." 

Mr. Beeeher's country home at Peekskill is said to 
have been built from the proceeds of lectures delivered 
by him in two years. He bought the farm on which 
it stands over twenty years ago, and for a time occu- 
pied a small cottage which stood on the place. The 
erection and interior decorations of the new house 
were personally supervised by him. It comprises a 
basement of granite, above which rise two stories of 
brick and a roof with many gables and dormer win- 
dows. Except in the vestibule there is no paint in 
the house from cellar to garret. Cherry is used on 
the first floor, ash on the second, and pine in the attic. 
The mantels are of wood decorated with tiles, and the 
walls and ceilings are papered. A broad veranda ex- 
tends across the front and a portion of one side of the 
house. The site is a commanding one. The farm 
itself contains a remarkable variety of trees and 
shrubs. Not only many States in this country, but 
England, the Continent, China, and Japan were laid 
under contribution. The result is between two hun- 
dred and three hundred varieties of trees and shrubs, 
the number of maples and pines being over twenty 
of each. 

"Norwood" was written mostly at Peekskill. As 
Mr. Beecher says in his preface: "There is not a 



204 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

single unpleasant memory connected with it. It was 
a summer-child, brought up among flowers and trees." 
When " Norwood " was ready for the press, he sent 
the following letter with it to the publisher: 

My Dear Me. Bonner: You have herewith the last 
line of " Norwood." I began it reluctantly, as one 
who treads an unexplored path. But as I went on I 
took more kindly to my work, and now that it is ended 
I shall quite miss my weekly task. 

My dear old father, after his day of labor had closed, 
used to fancy that in some way he was so connected 
with me that he was still at work; and on one occa- 
sion, after a Sabbath-morning service, some one in a 
congratulatory way, said to the venerable and meek 
old patriarch: 

' ' Well, Doctor, how did you like your son's 
sermon?" 

" It was good — good as I could do myself." And 
then, with an emphatic pointing of his forefinger, he 
added, "If it hadn't been for me, you'd never have 
had him!" 

If anybody likes "Norwood," my dear and vener- 
able Mr. Bonner, you can poke him with your finger 
and say, "If it hadn't been for me, you would never 
have had it." 

" Five years ago," said an old friend, " I sat on the 
broad verandah of Mr. Beecher's house at Peekskill. 
It was a late summer afternoon. We had played a 



J^ 




Henry Ward Beecher. 
See page 186. 



AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 207 

game of billiards. He had taken his afternoon nap, 
and he came out and sat down by my side in a Shaker 
rocker. I shall never forget the dreamy luxury of 
that afternoon. The landscape, which is the most 
beautiful in the world and rich with legendary associa- 
tions of Andre" and Enoch Crosby, was blushing with 
the first sensuous dalliance of autumn. The air was 
heavy with odors and drowsy with the drone of insects. 
A sweet, steady draught from the Highlands brought 
with it occasionally the far-away roll of a drum — it 
may have been at West Point— and lifted the long, 
white locks of my companion gently. He seemed to 
take in the vitality and beauty of the hour without be- 
ing conscious of it. 

"A child does that. He doesn't stop and rhapsodize 
over the sunset. He lets it in and sings and dances. 
The charm of the moment made Mr. Beecher happy 
and he talked freely and pleasantly. 

"At that time he was formulating in his mind the 
wholly unorthodox compromise with evolution which 
afterward took more definite shape in his lecture. He 
had been studying Spencer carefully and more lately 
Buchner, and he talked the best natured amalgam of 
rationalism and orthodoxy I ever heard. 

" I thought then that he had lost his anchorage and 
I wondered if at his time of life he would get another. 



208 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

I remember now surprised I was, when in close con- 
tact with him, to find the methods of the orator con- 
tinually and unwittingly disabling the metaphysician. 
He had struck back several fierce blows at New Eng- 
land Calvanism, but they were actuated by a growing 
sensibility that shrank from the cruelty of eternal 
punishment rather than by a conviction of its impossi- 
bility. I remember how he laughed when I told him 
that I thought the rationalistic arguments against hell 
were not so much the conviction of the reason as the 
squeal of weak nerves. I did not think that a morbid 
sensibility could weigh theistic truths — for as a rule 
they hurt. It was about this time that Col. Eobert G. 
Ingersoll replied to Judge Black in the North Ameri- 
can Review, and I asked Mr. Beecher what he thought 
of Ingersoll. 

"His reply was characteristic: 'Bob is a good 
fellow,' he said, 'but he is trying to do in thought 
what Nature has never been able to do in physics — 
create a vacuum, and what is worse, he is trying to do 
what Nature would be ashamed to do — make us be- 
lieve that a vacuum is admirable.' 

"I asked him why he did not reply to Ingersoll. 
He said the best man to reply to him was John B. 
Gough. It struck me at the time that that was as 
severe a thing as could be said of Ingersoll. But I 
don't think Mr. Beecher intended it to be severe. I 



AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 209 

don't think lie could be personally severe. It was not 
individuals that roused his combative spirit so much 
as general wrongs. The fact is I was not half as 
much charmed with the theologian as I was with the 
man. I soon enough found out that it was not easier 
to love Mr. Beecher than it was to disagree with him. 
But I never met a more delightful man to disagree 
with. 

" He put on a broad-brimmed felt hat and we 
walked through the lanes on the domain where the 
afternoon sun came golden through the gaps. He 
knew every tree and bird and flower ; the very weeds 
and stones wore a new air of companionship on 
account of him. I think the birds came nearer to me 
during that walk than ever before. I could not escape 
the consciousness of closely fluttering wings. 

" For Nature, too, has her loves and her hates. 
Her timid songsters are closer to some than to others. 
Her little germs swell and grow with alacrity under 
certain eyes and the mute beauties of the field do 
wave their tasselled caps and blow their odorous 
kisses — only to their friends. 

"An instinctive sense of the benignity of the great 
plan, and of the yearning of the whole creation up- 
ward, was an abiding and beautiful thing in Mr. 
Beecher. He believed in the primacy of love. He 
saw in it the seminal and conserving force of the uni- 
14 



210 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

verse. It was mentally impossible for him to con- 
ceive of purpose and design without love, because he 
conceived of hate as a destructive force always. 

" I am told that animals and children always came 
to him, and that I can readily believe, for I have on 
more than one occasion observed the sixth sense 
which enables animals and children to instantly dis- 
criminate. I have always believed in that beautiful 
story of Francis of Assissi which the Catholic Church 
cherishes and the Protestant Church regards as 
a fable. 

"A gentle masculinity pervaded Mr. Beecher's per- 
sonality. His large, sensuous nature was a whole- 
some one, and never developed the sentimentalism 
which is so often the penalty of acute sensibility. 
He was essentially an outdoor man. He could not, it 
is true, live in the luminiferous ether of the mystic, 
but it is equally true that he demanded oxygen and 
sunshine. 

"Like all such natures, he had a keen natural 
sense of the dramatic and demonstrative. Many 
times as I had heard him on the platform and in the 
pulpit sway the multitude from pole to pole of 
emotion, I could never make up my mind whether he 
arranged beforehand what the dramatist would call 
his ' situations, 1 or only let the occasion and its 
emotions supply them. 



AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 211 

" Years ago, when I was quite a boy, there was a 
great disturbance in this city over the Five Points, 
which at that time was the most disgraceful cesspool 
of iniquity on the face of the earth. The authorities 
either would not or could not do anything for its 
regeneration. Under the lash of public agitation the 
women of New York came together and organized 
what was called the Ladies' Home Missionary Society, 
and called a series of mass-meetings in Tripler Hall, 
an enormous building on Broadway that had been 
erected in anticipation of the arrival of Jenny Lind. 
These mass-meetings were unique. I think they took 
place on Saturday nights. Never before had so many 
' big guns ' been brought together on the platform as 
the ladies gathered for these meetings. Half-hour 
addresses were made by all the most eloquent orators 
of the American pulpit, irrespective of denomination, 
and the great hall was regularly packed to the door- 
ways. On one occasion I remember Cheever Cuyler, 
the lamented Dr. Foster, of the Methodist Church, 
and a score of others, including Henry Ward Beecher, 
were announced. And the Hutchinson family and the 
Alleghanians were to sing. The speakers were all on 
their mettle, for they were pitted against each other in 
a good cause. My recollection is that Dr. Foster 
fainted from excessive emotion, after one of the most 
startling appeals I ever heard. Somewhere in the 



212 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

course of the evening Henry Ward Beecker was intro- 
duced. He was then in the full flower of enthusiasm, 
and far more clerical in cut than when in his maturity. 
Instead of taking the centre of the platform, as all the 
preceding speakers had done, he walked to the extreme 
end and began an imaginary dialogue in which a poli- 
tician took part. He asked him all kinds of questions 
as to the proper way to regenerate the Five Points, and 
got all kinds of absurd and evasive replies. When he 
had exhausted the ignorance and indifference of this 
functionary, he walked to the other end of the plat- 
form, and, with both hands extended and body bent 
over, as if looking into a hole, he said: l We lay you 
down there for so much! ' 

" Then back across the width of the platform to begin 
another conversation with a physician. The whole 
character of the dialogue changed instantly. The new 
man spoke in a new vein. He had gases and thera- 
peutics at his finger ends. He would regenerate the 
Five Points with a six-foot sewer and chloride of lime. 
He was visionary, technical and wholly inadequate, 
and he was carried over and placed in the same hole 
'for so much.' 

" Then the same process was gone through with an 
editor, and a philosopher, and an engineer, and by this 
time the vast assemblage was worked up to a pitch of 
intense expectation and suspense. 



AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 213 

" The one dominant interrogative emotion was — 
' Who will do this thing? ' 

" Never have I forgotten the effect produced when 
the speaker took the middle of the stage for his pero- 
ration and said, ' Now we'll take down the Christian 
women of New York.' 

"And they seemed to ns to sweep down like the 
Valkyrie, with flaming swords. 

" Boy as I was, I knew, as soon as I got away from 
the magnetic influence of the speaker, that this was a 
trick of oratory, in which the method of the play- 
wright had been employed. We had been listening 
to a little drama, with its well-defined dramatis per- 
sons, its situations, its five acts, with a curtain, and 
its final denouement. 

" Tears afterwards, standing there on his lawn under 
one of the trees he had himself planted, trying to 
recall in the ruddy, white-haired man at my side the 
eager, impassioned, somewhat gaunt and irresistibly 
earnest speaker who had made such an impression on 
my young mind, I reminded him of the scene in 
Tripler Hall and asked him if he had planned that 
effect beforehand or left it to the suggestion of the 
moment. 

"His recollection was that it had occurred to him 
just before he appeared on the platform. He assured 



214 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

me that all his best results in oratory were due to the 
inspiration of the moment. 

" And then he told me how on one occasion he was 
making an anti-slavery speech at the old Broadway 
Tabernacle, and there had been left there, by Arthur 
Tappan or somebody else, a chain that had been worn 
in the South by a slave. ' In my closing appeal,' 
said Mr. Beecher, ' I saw the chain for the first time, 
and going over I picked it up and throwing it down 
trampled upon it as I finished. The effect was elec- 
trical, but it was unpremeditated. ' " 

" There is one curious place," said another old 
friend, "at Mr. Beecher's country home in Peekskill, 
which I think very few people know anything about. 
I discovered it accidentally, one Summer, while mak- 
ing a journey on foot through the upper part of the 
State. It was late one afternoon that I found myself 
on a hill overlooking a country residence, which I 
afterward discovered was the great preacher's. On a 
level piece of ground between me and the house was a 
high mound of small stones which had evidently been 
carefully placed there, and in a few minutes I dis- 
covered by whom. A short, fat man, clad in a long 
duster and a sun hat, came out of the house and 
walked over to the pyramid. Then he looked around 
on the ground and presently started off on a brisk 
walk for a distance of fifty yards, when he stooped 



AT HOME AT PEEKSKILL. 215 

down and, picking up a stone, carried it back to the 
mound. Then he started off after another one, and 
kept that exercise up for fifteen minutes, when his 
journeys brought him up to the tree behind which I 
had placed myself, and I saw that it was Mr. Beecher. 
He recognized me at the same time, arid started the 
laugh, in which, of course, I joined. Then he took 
me to his ' monument,' as he called it, and explained 
that he did all this work for exercise. There were 
numbers of stones in the ground near him, but he 
wouldn't touch those, preferring to get his exercise 
and his ' monument ' at the same time. He made it a 
rule never to carry back more than one stone at a 
time, and, when he showed me other similar mounds 
on various portions of his property, I saw that he had 
collected enough of the small rocks to make a fence 
around his grounds." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

"TO THE FKONT IN POLITICS AGAIN." 

Mr. Beecher' s energy and versatility seemed to in- 
crease with his years. He took the closest interest in 
politics, speaking at large gatherings not only in his 
own but in other cities. 

In 1880, he once more came to the front in the 
Presidential campaign as an advocate of Garfield's 
election. The cheers of his fellow citizens when he 
made his appearance on the political platform, and the 
persistent cries for " Beecher, Beecher ! " showed that 
his influence and popularity remained to him. 

It was in the fall of 1880, that Mr. Beecher intro- 
duced Col. Robert Ingersoll to a great political gather- 
ing in the Brooklyn Academy of Music, saying that the 
Colonel was the most brilliant living orator in any 
tongue. A day or two afterward the Colonel was 
asked by a reporter what he thought of Mr. Beecher. 
He at once sat down and wrote as fast as his pencil 
could trot over paper thus: 

" I regard him as the greatest man in any pulpit 
of the world. He treated me with a generosity that 
216 



TO THE FRONT IN POLITICS AGAIN. 217 

nothing can exceed. He rose grandly above the preju- 
dices which are supposed to belong to his class, and 
acted only as a man could act without a chain upon his 
brain, and only kindness in his heart. 

" I told him that night that I congratulated the 
world that it had a minister with an intellectual hori- 
zon broad enough, and a mental sky studded with stars 
of genius enough, to hold all creeds in scorn that 
shocked the heart of man. I think that Mr. Beecher 
has liberalized the English-speaking people of the 
world. I do not think he agrees with me. He holds 
to many things that I most passionately deny. But 
in common we believe in liberty of thought 

"My principal objections to orthodox religions are 
two — slavery here and hell hereafter. I do not believe 
that Mr. Beecher on these two points can disagree 
with me. The real difference between us is, he says 
God, I say nature. The real agreement between us is, 
we both say liberty." 

"What is Mr. Beecher's forte?" the reporter 
asked. 

" He is of a wonderfully poetic temperament. In 
pursuing any course of thought his mind is like a 
stream flowing through the scenery of fairyland. The 
stream murmurs and laughs, while the banks grow 
green and the vines blossom. 

" His brain is controlled by his heart. He thinks 



218 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in pictures. With him logic means mental melody. 
The discordant is the absurd. 

" For years he has endeavored to hide the dungeon 
of orthodoxy with the ivy of imagination. Now and 
then he pulls for a moment the leafy curtain aside, 
and is horrified to see the lizards, snakes, basilisks, 
and abnormal monsters of the orthodox age, and then 
he utters a great cry, the protest of a loving, throb- 
bing heart. 

" He is a great thinker, a marvelous orator, and, 
in my judgment, greater and grander than any creed 
or church. Besides all this, he treated me like a king. 
Manhood is his forte, and I expect to live and die his 
friend." 

The campaign of 1884 saw him take an entire change 
of front. He became the chief among the Mugwumps, 
and went out as a vigorous stump orator in favor of 
Cleveland. He spoke everywhere, and always with 
exceptional effect. He was derided by the opposition 
press, but he met all blows as an old campaigner, and 
gave them back with interest. It was a novel sight, 
that of this ardent Republican appearing on Demo- 
cratic platforms, and it caused him the loss of many 
old friends, who urged him if he was unable on con- 
scientious grounds and for personal reasons to support 
the candidate of his party, at least to hold his peace 
and content himself with a silent vote. But he could 



TO THE FKONT IN POLITICS AGAIN. 219 

not be moved or restrained, and he continued his 
efforts until the day of election. 

On the evening of October 22, in that year, he de- 
livered a campaign speech at the Brooklyn Rink to an 
audience which for numbers and enthusiasm had 
rarely been equaled in this State, and followed this up 
by making a series of such addresses in this city, 
Brooklyn, and in New Jersey during the remainder of 
the campaign. 

This action of Mr. Beecher was the subject of much 
severe criticism by certain members of his congregation, 
who thought that the pastor of Plymouth Church 
should not have allowed himself to express such ex- 
treme views as he had done. Sunday, December 28, 
Mr. Beecher, from his pulpit, delivered a long and most 
eloquent defense of his previous actions. He said 
that his motives were wholly pure, and he offered in 
the end to resign his pastorate should a majority re- 
quest his resignation. No such request was ever 
made. 

General Horatio C. King first met Mr. Beecher in 
1865, during a leave of absence from the army. He 
was introduced to him by Miss Howard, who afterward 
became his wife, and was always accorded the same 
treatment that Mr. Beecher accorded the members of 
Mr. Howard's family. 

"I sat on the platform," said Mr. King, "when 



220 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher made his speech in favor of Cleveland. 
Mr. Cleveland owed much to Mr. Beecher. There 
were many other things that contributed to his elec- 
tion, but a great deal was due to Mr. Beecher's com- 
ing out in his support, and I think my son, General 
Horatio C. King, was mainly instrumental in bringing 
Mr. Beecher to that point. 

" I suppose you have heard Mr. Beecher speak as 
often as I have. Every one has heard him. His Fri- 
day evening talks — informal talks — to the Plymouth 
Church people, on all sorts of topics, were especially 
interesting. Yes, it was wonderful the great amount 
of work he did, writing and speaking. Some people 
believed him inspired. I think Mr. Beecher believed 
it was inspiration. He should have stopped and taken 
rest. What has killed him, in my opinion, is ' The 
Life of Christ. 7 He should not have undertaken it; it 
was too great a task." 

In Mr. King's collection of autographs is an interest- 
ing scrap from Mr. Beecher's pen, illustrating his man- 
ner of work. To it is attached a ticket to the platform at 
the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, on the occasion of the 
address of Mr. Beecher on " The Issues of the Canvass." 
The scrap of writing contains the headings made by Mr. 
Beecher for his address. They are written in a bold 
hand, apparently with a quill pen, and many of the 
words are underscored. The headings are as follows: 



TO THE FRONT IN POLITICS AGAIN. 221 




Isabella Beecher Hooker. 

" First — Origin of party — historic logic of our history 
and principles. Second — What has it done to deserve 
well of the people ? Third — What charges are brought 
against it? (1) Not restoring the Union; delaying 
for party reasons. (2) Oppressive taxes. (3) It is 
refreshing to hear Mayor Hoffman express his con- 
science on extravagance in public moneys. Fourth — 
By whom are they accused? Who is it that proposes 
to take their place and finish the work of liberty? 
(1) Their relation to every event and step gained by 
war. (2) Their proposed remedy. Overturn all that 



222 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Congress lias done. Reverse legislation. Throw 
down State enactments. Send back Senators and Rep- 
resentatives. Remand Southern States to turmoil and 
confusion." 

Upon the platform Mr. Beecher, with these few 
notes, under the inspiration of the moment, delivered 
a sjilendid address, occupying two hours or more. 

Speaking of their political differences of opinion, 
Gen. King said a few days ago: "In my long inter- 
course with Mr. Beecher, differing as we always did 
politically until the campaign in which Mr. Cleveland 
was a candidate for the Governorship, Mr. Beecher 
never uttered a word of censure or attempted to 
influence my opinion, except by argument or playful 
badinage, which he sometimes plentifully bestowed. 
In all this time, though I have seen him angry, I 
never heard him give vent to his anger. His self- 
control was wonderful." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

" STARTLING THINGS." 

In his church he was always ready for his pulpit 
saying all manner of startling things. In 
1882 he withdrew from the New York and Brooklyn 
Congregational Association. He made the occasion 
one for the utterance of his belief and a reaffirmation 
of his theology, and then declared that he was no 
longer a member, while he would continue to work 
with them. 

When Mr. Beecher was most severely criticised by 
his Congregational brethren for what they were 
pleased to term his heterodoxy, he preached a series of 
sermons, and at the close of the anniversary sermon 
made this explanation: "This month completes the 
thirty-fifth year in which I have been the preacher in 
this church — since the third day of October, 1847. I 
have not changed the line of my preaching from that 
day. I have adopted no new thing that I had not at 
least some conception of in my mind when I came 
here. I think I could say of one-half my sermons of 
thirty -five years ago, ' I believe them still,' and of the 



224 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

other lialf, poor as they are and imperfect, yet I 
believe always that I was attempting to preach the 
truth of the power of God for the salvation of men. 
Nobody can put a lower estimate upon his ministry 
than I do. It is very little to me what men think 
about that. I am not to be judged by being compared 
with other men, but with God and by the work I have 
done. I have never preached what I did not believa; 
I have never asked myself whether to preach a truth 
that I did believe would be popular or unpopular. I 
have never been afraid of man, though I have been 
afraid of God as the child is afraid of the father it 
loves. The whole conception of life that I have had 
has been to serve my fellow men, and when, in the day 
that men despised the poor, oppressed negroes, that 
could not plead their own cause, I was more than will- 
ing, I was inexpressibly grateful to be permitted 
to stand for them, and not to forsake them until they 
were clothed in the majesty of equal rights by the 
great revolution. I attempted all my life long to take 
the part of those who had no defender; and I have 
done it. And in all matters in my own church I have 
steadily sought one thing, — to reproduce, so far as I 
was able to reproduce, the lineaments of the Lord 
Jesus Christ in your hearts. If the day should come 
when I could not avail myself of every revelation of 
God in nature — if the day should come in which you 






"STAKTLING THINGS." 225 

would not bear and forbear, I should depart. I 
should say, my work is done, the harvest is gathered, 
and my life is ended." 

In January of this year he was protesting against 
the action of the Brooklyn Board of Education, and 
overstated some reports which had reached him, but 
promptly withdrew them when his attention was called 
to the error. 

Jealousy had no place in Mr. Beecher's compo- 
sition. Too candid to be always considered a man of 
tact, his nature never prompted him to speak ill of a 
rival. Certainly no one stood in that relation to him 
more than did Mr. Talmage. Their personal relations, 
however, were always most pleasant. The following 
note shows with what a kind spirit Mr. Beecher re- 
garded the man whose congregations was the first to 
eclipse that of Plymouth Church: 

My Deae Dr. Talmage: I congratulate you most 
heartily on attaining to the ripe age of 53! From the 
summit of these years may you, like Moses, look over 
into fifty more, but unlike Moses be spared to go over 
and possess them. May labor sit light upon you! 
May your audiences grow larger and your cares grow 
less, until heaven calls you home, and there largest of 
all, may you find a great multitude whom you have 
helped on their heavenly way. Fraternally yours, 

Henry Ward Beecher, 

To Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D. 
15 



226 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

At this time Mr. Beeclier was, in personal appear- 
ance, one of the most striking men about New York. 
He was of medium height, with broad shoulders, and a 
heavy girth ; so stout and fleshy, in fact, that he looked 
short in inches. His head was large, though not 
bulging or irregular. His forehead was high, and his 
features were strong and full. His color was high, 
his cheeks and neck being always full-veined and 
ruddy. His hair was gray, turning to white in recent 
years, and hung in loose locks down on his black coat 
collar. His face was always smooth-shaven. His 
eyes were of a grayish blue, full of fire and expression 
in his moments of feeling, always humorous and 
inquisitive. He never paid great attention to dress, 
though far from being an unkempt or slovenly man. 
He wore dark clothes usually, and a black slouch hat 
habitually. He never could be brought to put on a 
silk hat or a " claw-hammer " coat, wearing a Prince 
Albert coat on formal occasions. Even in the pulpit 
he substituted a turn-down collar and black necktie 
for the more conventional clerical " choker " and white 
tie. He was in fact unconventional and indifferent in 
most of the smaller details of life. 

An old time New York journalist, who had had in- 
timate associations with Mr. Beecher for many years, 
said one day : "In all this time I have never found any- 
thing about Mr. Beecher more characteristic than his 



"STARTLING THINGS." 227 

humor. He is filled with amusing anecdotes about 
public men, and loves to hear one at his own expense. 
I met him one night on the steps of Moulton's house, 
in Brooklyn, and he sat down on the cold stone to lis- 
ten to a story about his first volume of the ' Life of 
Christ.' It came to me from Samuel Wilkinson, one 
of the firm of J. B. Ford & Co., the publishers of the 
book. Mr. Beech er laughed heartily over it, and ad- 
mitted its entire truth. When the book was ready for 
the press a steel plate costing $400 was made for the 
title page. It read, as engraved, ' Life of Jesus Christ. 
By Henry Ward Beecher,' but Mr. Beecher had writ- 
ten on the margin for insertion after Jesus and before 
Christ the word 'the.' The idea had not come to him 
until after the plate was made, and the question of ex- 
pense never occurred to him." 

Beecher's friend, Major Pond, tells this story: A 
short time ago he visited Brattleboro, Vt., in company 
with Mr. Beecher, and the latter told him that fifty 
years before that date he had delivered a Fourth of 
July oration in that town. He lived ten miles away, 
and the committee gave him the choice between $10 in 
cash, and his expenses. He took the cash and walked 
to and from Brattleboro. That was so much like 
Beecher that no one can doubt the genuineness of the 
story. 

Some time ago Mr. Beecher addressed a telegram 



228 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to "Mr. S , Syracuse, N. Y." The message was 

sent as directed, but the person to whom it was 
directed could not be found. The telegraph company 
notified the great preacher of the failure to deliver and 
this was his reply: 

"Mr. S lives in Utica, N. Y., and if anybody 

told you Syracuse, he did not know what he was 
about. 

" There are just such folks in the world, always 
making blunders, and if you could lay your hands on 
them and a*bate them as a nuisance it would be well. 

" Please put a double battery on this delayed mes- 
sage, so as to get it to S speedily, lest he be too 

late for to-night's train, and my ncioney be spent in 
vain. Henry Ward Beecher." 

The original message, in his own handwriting, ad- 
dressed to Syracuse, was sent back to Mr. Beecher 
with his letter. The letter came back to the operator 
with this written on it in Mr. Beecher's writing: 

" I'm glad you nabbed him." 

Another story is told that Mr. Beecher and U. S. 
Grant were, at one time, together at a public dinner 
given in Brooklyn, when Mr. Beecher suddenly 
looked at his watch and remarked that as the time 
was rapidly nearing a certain hour, he would have 
to ask the company to pardon his early departure 
as he had a marriage ceremony to perform. Saying 



"STARTLING THINGS." 229 

this, Mr. Beecher arose from the table, and as he 
did so General Grant, who had been sitting next to 
him, removed a rosebud from the lapel of his coat, 
and handing the flower to Mr. Beecher, said: 

"Will you kindly hand this to the bride, and 
give to her and her future husband my best wishes ? " 

Mr. Beecher accepted and fulfilled the trust, and the 
bride of that time still has the faded flower, and 
treasures it as a precious souvenir. 

Mr. Beecher began in May, 1885, a series of ser- 
mons on Evolution, which drew unusually large audi- 
ences to Plymouth Church. The series was contin- 
ued until the summer vacation of that year. The 
object of the sermons was to show the moral evolution 
of man rather than to give a scientific discussion of 
the theory. Mr. Beecher' s idea was that man began 
on a very low basis, and that there was a long period 
when he was developing so as to understand the exist- 
ence and nature of God — a period of incubation as he 
described it. In closing his first sermon on the sub- 
ject, clasping his hands, he said: 

" There shall come a day when life and all its 
troubles have passed away. There shall come a day 
when I shall know even as I am known, and as God the 
all-knowing looks through and through me and knows 
me altogether, I shall behold Him as He is, and shad- 



230 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ows, figments, and partialities will have passed away 
forever, and I shall know Him as I am known." 

Mr. Beecher touched lightly on the Darwin theory, 
but went so far as to say: 

"lam inclined to believe that man is, in the order 
of nature, in analogy with the rest of God's work, and 
that there was a time when he stepped ahead of his 
fellow-animals." 

i In the series, Mr. Beecher spoke of evolution in 
connection with inspiration of the Bible, inherited 
sin, regeneration of man, design and evolution in the 
church. 

While he was engaged in delivering these sermons 
he described his religious faith fully and concisely in 
the following letter to the Rev. George Morrison of 

Baltimore : 

Brooklyn, N. Y., June 13, 1885. 
Dear Sir: I thank you for your friendly solici- 
tude. I am sure that in the end you will not be dis- 
appointed, though on some points you may not agree 
with me. The foundation doctrines, as I hold them, 
are a personal God, Creator, and ruler over all things ; 
the human family universally sinful; the need and 
possibility and facts of conversion ; the Divine agency 
in such a work; Jesus Christ the manifestation of God 
in human condition ; His office in redemption supreme. 
I do not believe in the Calvinistic form of stating the 
atonement. I do not believe in the fall of the human 



STARTLING THINGS." 231 

race in Adam, and, of course, I do not hold that Christ's 
work was to satisfy the law broken by Adam for all 
his posterity. The race was not lost, but has been 
ascending steadily from creation. I am in hearty 
accord with revivals and revival preaching, with the 
educating forces of the church, and in sympathy with 
all ministers who in their several ways seek to build 
up men into the image of Jesus Christ, by whose 
faithfulness, generosity and love I hope to be saved 
and brought home to Heaven. With cordial regards, 
I am truly yours, 

Henry Ward Beecher. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND. 

Mr. Beecher's seventieth birthday was celebrated 
by the church and the whole city with general en- 
thusiasm. An ovation was accorded to him such as 
no minister has received in this generation. That 
it pleased him and cheered him was evident, and 
when it was repeated on the occasion of his setting 
out on an European tour, Mr. Beecher could not 
find words to express his grateful appreciation of 
this confidence and love. 

Mr. Beecher had not been in England since 18G3, 
and he much desired to note for himself the changes 
which had occurred during that long time. Accom- 
panied by Mrs. Beecher and Major Pond, his man- 
ager, he sailed for England on the Etruria, June 20. 
For almost four months Mr. Beecher traveled all over 
England, Scotland, and Wales. His lectures deliv- 
ered in London, Leeds, Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, 
and other cities and towns in the kingdom, were in 
every sense successful. 

Mr. Beecher intended his journey to be in 
232 






ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND. 233 

large measure a rest from the labors that he had 
been incessantly performing here, year after year, 
in Brooklyn. But he went at an unfortunate 
time. At that time all England was ablaze with the 
national elections. It was a question whether Glad- 
stone and Parnell should control, or whether home 
rule should go to the wall. The period was a critical 
one. Everybody knew in what direction Mr. Beecher's 
sympathies tended, and there was a universal expecta- 
tion that when he reached the other side there would 
be something in the nature of a repetition of his war- 
time triumphs over English prejudice. There was 
some disappointment on this side, therefore, when he 
failed to realize the expectations of some of the folks 
who were hopeful that he would work toward the good 
of Ireland. 

But Mr. Beecher had gone over on no such mission. 
There was nothing partaking of the war-like or the na- 
tional in the manner of his departure. At his regular 
Friday evening prayer-meeting he told a larger con- 
gregation than usual of his intention to take ship on 
the following morning, and bade them an affectionate 
farewell. Bunning through this regular Friday even- 
ing talk was one of those melancholy yet pleasing 
veins of speech in which Mr. Beecher frequently in- 
dulged in late years. He told his assembled parish- 
ioners that he felt that he had but a short time to re- 



234 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

main with them. There was a possibility that he 
might never return to them. There were plenty of 
moist eyes when he had concluded. 

The next morning all Plymouth Church was astir. 
The steamship Grand Republic had been chartered to 
accompany the great preacher down the bay, and fully 
four thousand people got up early to see him off. Side 
by side down the bay, and outside of Sandy Hook, the 
ocean steamship and the smooth water steamer pro- 
ceeded, hundreds of handkerchiefs waving continuously 
from the latter, while Mr. Beecher and his wife stood 
on the forward deck of the Etruria and returned the 
parting salutations. His trip over was one of those 
agonizing experiences of the flesh that fell to the lot 
of Mr. Beecher whenever he left the land. He was 
not thoroughly well until, just a week after his depart- 
ure, he stepped aboard the little tender in the River 
Mersey, and, escaping the Custom House officials who 
were looking only for spirits and cigars, got into the 
Northwestern Hotel at Liverpool. 

There he found, however, that his troubles had 
only begun. He found lots of telegrams and letters 
awaiting him, asking his attendance at the home-rule 
meetings that were then being held throughout the 
land. He was compelled to ignore them all. Delega- 
tion after delegation waited upon him to urge his 
presence at this, that, or the other place throughout the 



ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND. 235 

United Kingdom where Gladstone's policy was to be 
upheld, but to all of them Mr. Beecher returned, in 
substance, this answer: 

" I am here simply as an American citizen. What- 
ever may be my personal feeling in this matter, I am 
debarred just now from thrusting my views upon the 
voters of the country. From an international stand- 
point it would not be courteous, and from my stand- 
point it would be impertinent." 

At the same time he could not restrain himself 
entirely. His sympathies were so thoroughly aroused 
in the cause of the Irish people, which was to him 
broader than the mere question of sectionalism, that he 
was, perforce, embroiled to some extent in the contest. 
His meeting with Gladstone in Liverpool at that time 
is noteworthy. 

Mr. Beecher delayed his departure to London, 
where he had engagements, for three days in order to 
be present at Gladstone's closing address in the cam- 
paign at Henglar's Circus, Liverpool. The "two 
grand old men " met in the ante-room at that meeting, 
and when they went upon the platform there were 
almost as many and as enthusiastic cheers for Beecher 
as there were for the latter-day industrial liberator. 
Despite the urgent calls for some utterance from the 
man who a quarter of a century before had quelled 
the pro-Southern Liverpool mobs and brought them 



236 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to reason, Mr. Beecher would say no word, adhering 
to his belief that at that time it was not fitting that 
there should be any American interference. 

For a month he stopped in London. On Tues- 
day, Sept. 28, 1886, the Board of London Congrega- 
tional Ministers, with their wives or other lady 
friends and a few invited guests, entertained Mr. and 
Mrs. Beecher at a social meeting in the Memorial 
Hall. On that occasion Mr. Beecher made an address 
in which he said: 

" I say in regard to all church worship, that is the 
best form of church economy, which, in the long run, 
helps men to be the best Christians. In regard to 
ordinances I stand very nearly where the Quakers do, 
except that they think that because they are not 
divinely commanded they are not necessary. I think 
they are most useful. Common schools are not 
divinely ordered, Sunday schools are not divinely 
ordered ; but would you dispense with them ? Is 
there no law and reason except that of the letter? 
Whatever thing is found when applied to human 
nature to do good, that is God's ordinance. If there 
are any men that worship God through the Koman 
Catholic Church — and there are — I say this in regard 
to them: 'I can not, but you can; God bless you!' 
In that great, venerable church there is gospel enough 
to save any man; no man need perish for want of 



ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND. 



237 




Catherine Beecher. 



light and truth in that system; and yet, what an econ- 
omy it is; what an organization, what burdens, and 
how many lurking mischiefs that temptations will 
bring out! I could never be a Roman Catholic, but I 
could be a Christian in a Roman Catholic church; I 
could serve God there. I believe in the Episcopacy — 
for those who want it. Let my tongue forget its cun- 
ning if I ever speak a word adverse to the church that 
brooded my mother, and now broods some of the near- 
est blood kindred I have on earth. It is a man's own 
fault if he do not find salvation in the teaching and 



238 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

worship of the great Episcopal body of the world. 
Well, I can find no charm in the Presbyterian govern- 
ment. I was for ten years a member of the Presby- 
terian Church, for I swore to the confession of faith; 
but at that time my beard had not grown. The rest 
of the Book of Worship has great wisdom in it, and 
rather than not have any brotherhood, I M r ould be a 
Presbyterian again if they would not oblige me to 
swear to the confession of faith. On the other hand, 
my birthright is in the Congregational Church. I 
was born in it, it exactly agreed with my tempera- 
ment and with my ideas; and it does yet, for although 
it is in many respects slow-molded, although in many 
respects it has not the fascinations in its worship that 
belong to the high ecclesiastical organizations; 
though it makes less for the eye and less for the ear, 
and more for the reason and the emotions; though it 
has, therefore, slenderer advantages, it has this : that it 
does not take men because they are weak and crutch 
them up upon its worship, and then just leave them as 
weak after forty years as they were when it found 
them. A part of its very idea is so to meet the weak- 
ness of men as that they shall grow stronger; to 
preach the truth, and then wait till they are able to 
seize that truth and live by it. It works slowly, but I 
tell you that when it has finished its work it makes 
men in the community ; and I speak both of the Con- 






ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND. 239 

gregationalists that are called Baptists and those that 
are called Congregationalists ; they are one and the 
same, and ought to be hand in hand with each other, 
in perfect sympathy." 

His social reception there was of the most emphatic 
and flattering description. But he was too humorous. 
Alas! he said funny things in the pulpit, and some of 
the sombre newspapers there published, had lugubrious 
editorials upon " Humor in the Pulpit." Mr. Beecher 
could no more refrain from painting a moral lesson 
there, with some animated and possibly jocular allusion, 
than he could help breathing, and before he left he 
convinced the Britishers that a spice of humor was 
not absolutely incompatible with the most thorough- 
going and straight-laced religion. 



CHAPTEK XX. 

HOME AGAIN. 

After a four mouths' absence, during which he 
met most distinguished Liberals in England, Mr. 
Beecher returned home and was received with open 
arms by a people who cherished him as a man of 
large heart, great brain, and large manhood. 

He resumed his labors, ardently looking forward to 
years of activity and usefulness. To his brother he 
wrote : 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Jan. 25. 
My Dear Brother: You are ahead of us all in 
years. But we are all hard after you, Edward, Mary, 
Charles and myself. To think that this coming sum- 
mer I shall be seventy -four years old. It is high time 
that I should leave off all boyish ways and study 
grave and dignified manners. But as I have no rheu- 
matism, no neuralgia, no baldheadedness, no need of 
spectacles, no deafness — how could it be expected 
that I should behave properly ? No, Providence meant 
me for a squirrel, but suddenly changed its mind and 
made a man of me, and so I must, squirrel-like, frolic 
on to the end. 

Charles and Edward are well, Edward preaching 
240 



HOME AGAIN. 241 

twice on Sunday and walking six miles to do it. I 
suppose that some one sent you a paper account of 
the celebration of his sixtieth anniversary of ordina- 
tion. Next summer I shall have been ordained fifty 
years, married fifty years, and settled in Brooklyn 
forty years. There's figures for you. 

My wife has been quite sick for six weeks. She 
had a compound made up of rheumatism and neural- 
gia, with a substratum of dyspepsia and a touch of 
heart trouble. Poor thing, she did suffer! But she 
is better and getting about again. With love to all 
your household and yourself, I am, your affectionate 
brother, 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

To the Kev. William H. Beecher. 

When Oscar S. Straus, now Minister to Turkey, 
was bsing urged for that office by his friends, Mr. 
Beecher, a warm friend of Mr. Straus, wrote the 
following letter. It is a peculiar letter. It tells more 
definitely than any words describe, the broad states- 
manship and advanced position of Brooklyn's famous 

pastor : 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Feb. 12, 1887. 
Grover Cleveland — Dear Mr. President: Some 
of our best citizens are solicitous for the appointment 
of Oscar Straus- as Minister to Turkey. Of his fitness 
there is a general consent that he is personally, and 
in attainments, eminently excellent. But I am inter- 
ested in another quality — the fact that he is a He- 
brew. The bitter prejudice against Jews, which 
16 



242 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

obtains in many parts of Europe, ought not to receive 
any countenance in America. It is because he is a 
Jew, that I would urge his appointment as a fit recog- 
nition of this remarkable people, who are becoming 
large contributors to American prosperity, and Avhose 
intelligence, morality, and large liberality in all pub- 
lic measures for the welfare of society deserve and 
should receive from the hands of our Government 
some such recognition. Is it not also a duty to set 
forth in this quiet but effectual method the genius of 
American Government, which has under its fostering 
care people of all civilized nations, and which treats 
them without regard to civil, religious, or race pecu- 
liarities as common citizens. We send Danes to Den- 
mark, Germans to Germany; we reject no man because 
he is a Frenchman; why should we not make a crown- 
ing testimony to the genius of our people by sending 
a Hebrew to Turkey ? The ignorance and superstition 
of medieval Europe may account for the prejudice of 
that dark age. But how a Christian in our day can 
turn from a Jew I can not imagine. Christianity itself 
suckled at the bosom of Judaism ; our roots are in the 
Old Testament. We are Jews ourselves gone to blos- 
som and fruit. Christianity is Judaism in evolution, 
and it would seem strange for the seed to turn against 
the stock on which it was grown. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Always indefatigable and unremitting in his liter- 
ary labors, Mr. Beecher had been — ever since his 
return from Europe — even more assiduous at the toil 






HOME AGAIN. 243 

of the desk than before. He contributed several arti- 
cles a week to newspapers, and worked day and night 
upon his great task, the preparation of his long de- 
layed " Life of Christ." That work is now about two- 
thirds finished, and as the written pages accumulated 
under his pen he never wearied. So it seemed to Mrs. 
Beecher, his devoted wife, and to his sons, Colonel 
Henry B. Beecher and Mr. William C. Beecher, with 
whom he lived in the old fashioned, commodious four 
story brick building on the corner of Hicks and Clark 
streets. 

It was with difficulty that his family could prevail 
upon him to leave off work at the desk in his study, 
on the second floor, to go down stairs to his meals. 

Mr. Beecher's health did not appear to suffer from 
the confinement, but there is now no doubt that it 
did. It was a complete change in his habits. He 
had always been accustomed to take a great deal of 
outdoor exercise. Full blooded and inclined to gain 
flesh rapidly, he always said that the more he lived 
out of doors the better he felt. He was not a hearty 
eater. Always accustomed to take good care of him- 
self, he adapted his eating to his physical needs* 
rather than to his appetite, and often ate less than a 
child. He was in the habit of taking long walks every 
day, and there was no figure so well known on the 
streets of New York or Brooklvn as his. 



244 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

The sudden changes in his way of life, which fol- 
lowed when he came home from England, and secluded 
himself to complete his " Life of Christ,"" undoubt- 
edly had a more serious effect upon his health than 
any one knew at the time. He was not in the best of 
health when he returned from abroad. The ocean 
voyage never did agree with him, and he had not 
recovered from its fatigues when he renewed his labors 
upon his great literary work. 

Mr. Beecher, with his enthusiastic nature, never 
did thirjgs by halves, and when he set himself the task 
of completing his book, he went at it vigorously, and 
denied himself the outdoor exercise and the recreation 
he needed. 

Some fifteen years ago, when he stood above the 
coffin that held the lifeless form of Horace Greeley, 
Mr. Beecher, saddened by the burden of a personal 
sorrow, uttered these words: 

' ' Death is always hidden, no matter how long it 
may have been expected. Death is always impres- 
sive, no matter where it strikes. But when it comes 
no man looks for it ; when it strikes down men 
whose words have been treasured in every household 
and whose teachings have inspired the nation, then, 
indeed, it becomes impressive and momentous." 

In the Brooklyn Magazine for last March he wrote: 

" We are going home. Men shiver at the idea 



HOME AGAIN. 245 

that we are going to die; but this world is only a 
nest. AVe are scarcely hatched out of it here. We 
do not know ourselves. We have strange feelings 
that do not interpret themselves. The mortal in us 
is crying for the immortal. As in the night the 
child, waking with some vague and nameless terror, 
cries out to express its fear and dread, and its cry is 
interpreted in the mother's heart, who runs to the 
child and lays her hand upon it and quiets it to sleep 
again, so God hears our disturbances, trials and tribu- 
lations in life. Do you not suppose that He who is 
goodness itself cares for you? Do you suppose that 
He whose royal name is Love has less sympathy for 
you than the mother has for her babe ? Let the world 
rock. If the foot of God is on the cradle, fear not. 
Look up, take courage, hope, and hope unto the end." 

Said an old acquaintance: " The day ex-President 
Arthur was buried I passed down the side aisle of the 
Church of the Heavenly Rest, and paused when near 
the altar to look about in the gloom for a seat. I felt 
a hand laid gently on my arm. which drew me into the 
pew. 

" As we went out of the church, following the funeral 
cortege, all were impressed with the solemn rendering 
of 'I Would Not Live Alway.' As the last note died 
away I turned to Mr. Beecher, who had so kindly made 



24:6 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

place for me, and said: 'I would not live alway, would 
you?' 

" ' No,' said he firmly. ' I have lived almost as long 
as I want to.' 

"At that moment a friend greeted us near the door. 
'Mr. Beecher and I have decided,' I said, 'that we do 
not wish to live to be a hundred.' 

" ' I do,' replied the gentleman. 

" I remarked that the Kev. Dr. Tyng once said 
' that he did not want to die from the top first.' 

" ' That indeed would be dreadful,' were Mr. 
Beecher's last words, as he grasped my hand with a 
vigorous ' good-bye,' stepping off like a man of twen- 
ty-five." 

One of Mr. Beecher's Sunday letters, published the 
first of the year, seems to have been tinged with the 
sadness that might come from a premonition that he 
was entering upon a year that was to be his last. His 
thoughts turn to the harvest of death reaped by the 
year that was closing as he wrote. The following is 
its opening paragraph: 

"As one who saunters through the fields in autumn 
gathering flowers, leaves and fruits, so Time comes to 
this, new year with arms full gathered from among 
men of the gentle, the forward, the strong and wise 
and of those who die as 'the fool dieth.' But, be- 
sides the men of name known and talked about, what 






HOME AGAIN. 247 

numberless hosts have , gone into the shadow-land 
silently, unannounced, unknown, except to the half 
dozen who lived under the same roof!" 

At another time: 

"Life insurance is not only not wrong, but is a 
duty. No one has any right to leave those who are 
dependent upon his love and care to the chances of in- 
dustrial paralysis and poverty." 

Again, Beecher said years ago: 

"I never had any sympathy with the Episcopal 
prayer, 'From sudden death deliver us.' When I go 
I pray that I may go swiftly, like a falling star;' go in 
the midst of my usefulness, and not be chained in 
some living death, a burden to myself and the friends 
I love." 



CHAPTEK XXI. 

LAST DISCOURSE. 

In the midst of work, and " with his harness still 
on " Mr. Beecher was suddenly stricken down. 

J. T. Howard was one of the first to welcome Mr. 
Beecher to Brooklyn, and a close friendship at once 
sprang up between them, and was only broken by 
death. The last evening spent from home by Mr. 
Beecher was passed at the residence of Mr. Howard. 
This was Wednesday evening of the week. Mr. 
Beecher was as buoyant in manner and as full of life 
as at any time in the last dozen years. 

Mr. Beecher 1 s last charitable work of a public char- 
acter was his effort to provide the nucleus of a library 
for the Western branch of the Old Soldiers' Home at 
Leavenworth, Kan. Gov. Smith was at the head of this 
institution, and in his anxiety to provide mental food 
for his veterans he never forgot to depict their wants 
in the way of a library, not only to personal friends, 
but to any one whom he thought would give the project 
helping hand. It is supposed that he asked Mr. 
Beecher's assistance and Mr. Beecher promptly re- 
248 



LAST DISCOURSE. 249 

sponded. A concert was to be given by members of 
Plymouth Church, and he promised Gen. King to give 
the Soldiers' Home library scheme a " good notice." 
He urged his congregation to send what books they 
could spare to Leavenworth, and, saying that he 
intended to practice what he preached, contributed 
books which filled two wheelbarrows. None who ever 
approached him to ask for proper assistance ever 
expected to meet with refusal. 

" On Thursday morning, before his last illness," 
writes a friend, " I received a note from Mr. Beecher 
asking me to call and see him that evening. I did so 
and found him in his accustomed good health and the 
very best of good humor. After supper he asked to 
examine the catalogue of a AYestern publishing house, 
which he had requested me to bring. Turning over 
the leaves he made running comments upon the 
appearance of certain authors whose portraits were on 
the pages ; I remember his humorous allusion to 
George Eliot's portrait. The picture was a small 
head of the famous novelist, and by some accident 
the face had become very much darkened by a surplus 
of ink, which made her strongly resemble an Indian 
squaw, and her features hardly distinguishable. ' Now 
why,' said Mr. Beecher to me, ' will men print such 
pictures as that one? The Lord knows George Eliot 
was homely enough, and the devil knows it by this 



250 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

time. Do you know what that picture suggested to 
me ? ' he continued. I said it looked very much like 
an Indian woman. ' No,' said Mr. Beecher, ' it looks 
to me as if George Eliot had been in purgatory and 
there had been some terrible explosion with her in the 
center of it.' " 

Sunday, February 27, morning and evening, Mr. 
Beecher preached two remarkably vigorous sermons. 
The evening sermon, which was his last, was reported 
by Mr. Wiman, as follows: 

" And He said unto His disciples, There was a cer- 
tain rich man which had a servant, and the same was 
accused unto him. * * * No servant can serve 
two masters; for either he will hate the one and love 
the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise 
the other. You can not serve God and Mammon." 

Text — Luke, xvi. chap., 4th verse, the first clause: 
"I am resolved what to do." 

" I read in your hearing this narrative, this par- 
able of our Lord. The unjust steward had been ac- 
cused, and rightfully, of betraying his trust and wast- 
ing that committed to him. His master called him to 
an account, and he was satisfied that the end had 
come; and he communed with himself, and as the re- 
sult of that, and looking over all the circumstances, he 
said: ' I am resolved what to do.' 

" What he resolved to do was not very honest, but 



LAST DISCOURSE. , 251 

it was very shrewd. He resolved to make friends of 
all the debtors of his lord. He called them up aud 
settled with them in such a way as to lay them under 
obligations — gratitude to him And so, although he 
and they cheated the master, he made his own nest 
warm and the master praised him — not Jesus, but the 
man that owned the property is the one. When he 
heard of it he said to himself : ' Well, that is shrewd ; 
that is cunning; that is wise,' and the comment on it 
is: Children of this world are wiser than the children 
of light; that is to say, men who are acting in worldly 
reasons, for worldly reasons, are very much wiser than 
the men becoming good from the highest moral con- 
siderations. But that, that they have selected, is sim- 
ply this: 'I am resolved what to do.' 

" What, then, is the nature of a resolution — what 
is the scope of it, the potency? And what are the 
drawbacks? The self-consideration of these questions 
may throw light upon the path of many of us. Now, 
our long effort of making up our mind is equivalent to 
forming a purpose. When a man resolves, he means, 
or should mean, to do something ; and all resolutions 
carry, or should carry, not simply the end sought, but 
also the capable and necessary means by which the 
end is sought. I am resolved to cross that river, by 
the bridge, by boat, or by swimming. To stand on 
one side and to resolve to be on the other, withoiit any 



252 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

intermediate means of doing it, would be folly indeed. 
I am resolved to-morrow to go to market. All the in- 
termediate and implied steps by which that resolution 
could be carried out are included in the resolution 
itself. A resolution is a purpose in so far as simple 
things, uncompounded, incomplex, are concerned. A 
resolution may be executed immediately, without loss 
of time; indeed, the greatest number of resolutions are 
those which, like the stroke of the hammer or the ex- 
plosion of the gun, are almost without any appreciable 
interlapse of time. ' I am resolved what to do.' Nat- 
ural resolutions: At the cry of fire the man instantly 
looks out to see what to do ; at the call of a man to 
step to the door and see a stranger or a friend; he re- 
solves to do it; although the resolution is latent in 
such a sense by repetition, that he is not conscious of 
making up his mind. 

" In regard to a great many of the acts of a man's 
life, cerebration — that is to say, the action of the 
brain — has become so common that it takes place 
without any appreciable appearance of taking place. 
A multitude of things — if one gets in a crowd, and 
a man would strike him, his defense is not the result 
of reflection, and yet it was in him as a result of expe- 
rience to protect himself; and, if it be a shadow, it is 
just the same, for a shadow seems like a substance, 
and he puts himself in a ludicrous attitude of defense: 



LAST DISCOURSE. 253 

he smiles, and he goes on, but the action of the mind, 
the unconscious cerebration, is there. As, for instance, 
in things that apply to the now, that are uncom- 
pounded and simple, a man resolves and executes 
almost at the same moment. The child calls from 
above, l Father,' and incidentally there is no thought 
whether he shall or shall not answer, yet the train 
goes on within him, and he replies, ' My son what ? ' 
Or the call has come to him for help, and instantly, 
before the last echo of the sound dies out of his ear, 
he is on his feet, on his way. But these are very 
simple things; they are the primary forms, which 
afterwards, becoming more and more complicated, run- 
ning through longer periods of time, imply a great 
many intermediate steps. For a man can resolve that 
he will go to bed — it doesn't take long, either — he 
resolves that to-morrow morning he will get up and 
go ' cruising,' but to-morrow is dark and stormy, and 
the resolution is not half so strong when he wakes up 
as it was when he went to bed. There are a great 
many considerations that come. Or the man resolves 
that to-morrow he will go to market; neighbors come 
in ; he waits ; it is noon, and then time is too little to 
go. 'And come again.' And he puts it off 'until the 
next morning. So between the resolution and the 
night — for one takes hold upon the other — there is 
a delay and the intermediate history 



25-t ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Now, as you go on in life, as society itself 
becomes more complex — civilization is growth in com- 
plexity — as the things that you resolve to do or not 
to do, are largely in their times, and are clustered 
together by cause and effect, resolutions, spreading 
over so long spaces and so much intermediatism, are 
somewhat different from the first resolve. 

"Resolution, then, means a purpose, the will itself; 
and it includes in it, also, all indispensable intermedi- 
ate steps; and some resolutions execute themselves 
immediately; some with some delay; some with long 
delay; some, through many subordinate resolutions, 
that carry out the primary one. And a man may 
resolve at a critical moment, that which will determine 
the whole career of his life; yea, he may determine 
in any one single, final moment, that which will take 
the whole of his life to carry into effect. This is the 
case of ten thousand men. When my father was 
young, a lad (he was brought up by, substantially, an 
uncle), he had in him all that was necessary to make 
him what he was in his professional life. But he 
did not'do it ; he was careless ; he was heedless ; he was 
forgetful of things external ; and so Uncle Lot Benton 
one morning, going out, found that being out late with 
the horses the night before, visiting some young com- 
pany, the bridle was placed over the water-trough and 
the saddle was thrown down behind the stable door, 



LAST DISCOURSE. 255 

and the horses turned in without a halter, and he said, 
' Oh, well, Lyman will never make a farmer; he is not- 
fitted for it.' And so, talking in the orchard with him 
one day, he says : ' Lyman, how would you like to go 
to college ? ' No answer. They went on working all 
day. Next day, about the same hour, as they were 
working together in the orchard, Lyman says : ' I 
would like to go, sir.' That settled it. In that begin- 
ning was a purpose that shaped differently his whole 
life ; it never gave out ; it branched in every direction ; 
he made what he was; that was owing to the parting; 
by not, he would have been a miserable farmer; he 
made a tolerably good minister and a tolerably good 
father. 

' So, then, a man may form a resolution without 
noise, without parade, but that holds infinite sequences 
in its development. It may include in itself a short 
process and an intermediate ; it may include in itself a 
longer process; it may include in itself the whole 
scope of a man's life, and thrice ten thousand resolu- 
tions will be formed successively to carry out the 
great primary resolution which a man makes. Thus, 
if a man is to be a lawyer he is not going to be a 
blacksmith, nor a sailor, nor a soldier, so that there is 
the resolution of exclusion; it turns him away from 
those things inconsistent with the first element. If 
he is to be a lawyer there must be the question of 



256 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

education, and a professional education, and all the 
'conditions which are prerequisite to the presenting 
himself to the court and his license to plead and the 
beginnings of practice. All of those are wrapped up 
iii the first determination, ' I will be a lawyer ;' but 
that determination don't make him one; it starts him 
on a long train of events that are necessary to make 
him a lawyer. And so in regard to morality, a young 
man may stand on the threshold of life; he may 
resolve that he will see the world; and the man that 
means to see everything in the world will probably 
see a good deal under the world, by and by, that he 
won't care about seeing. A man who resolves, on the 
other hand, ' I believe in honesty ; it is the best prin- 
ciple ' (but it is better than nothing to say) ; that is 
the best policy ; it is good policy ; all good policy is a 
principle: all good principles carry with them a 
policy. And a young man, he says, ' I am determined 
to be an honest and upright man; 1 that at once 
spreads to other men; he won't associate with certain 
ones, he will associate with certain others; he won't 
follow certain things; he will seek other paths; the 
resolution sifts life for him out of its discipline, and 
another resolution is a growing, crude thing. Now, 
there are a good many people who don't seem ever to 
have a resolution ; they are like sieves, all their 
thoughts run through and are wasted; there is a great 




Beecher's Brooklyn Home. 

See page 165. 



LAST DISCOUKSE. 259 

deal of diffidence about them; there are some men 
whose thoughts are like the ratchet-wheel, the wheel 
that has, notch by notch, to hold what it has got ; and 
there are a great many Avhose thoughts are like thistle 
downs that are going everywhere, and don't know 
that they are going anywhere, and are subject to 
the mutations of the wind. There is a great deal of 
difference — need be — to win men to form resolutions, 
sometimes, of a strong nature and a sterling strong 
purpose ; when once they have resolved never to 
flinch, they never know in any hour a downsliding ; 
they may be less active at one time than another, but 
they don't turn back. Once having put their hand to 
the plough they don't look back again. But then 
there are those that have the same policy resolution, 
but they are made of different stuff ; it slides away ; 
they forget it ; they are not stiff enough to stand up 
against the wind, it may be, that shall come upon 
them. 

"The general qualities of the resolutions which 
men make are of every grade; even a frail woman, 
walking in the boisterous March wind, may find that 
with all the sail she carries she can not make headway 
against it, and supports herself by a fence that is stiff 
enough to hold her until the wind lulls. And as it is 

in the community so it is in regard to individuals 

there are many persons who, left to themselves, waver; 



260 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

they do so sometimes from good reasons, sometimes 
from those not so good, sometimes because the pur- 
poses were formed in a moment of excitement and have 
nothing left of them when the excitement cools. 
There is instability also arising from disability of or- 
ganization; that is to say, a man may be susceptible 
while one class of effects is being produced, and in 
that mood he may form a resolution, but to-morrow 
some other blessed, beautiful thing may come up, and 
he is just as susceptible of that, and the secondary 
state of mind obliterates the first. A man is under 
the influence of music, and all his purposes run under 
that power or influence, but, by and by, the outbreak 
of politics brings up patriotism, as it is called, and his 
moods change, and those early sensations at first are 
no longer operative upon him; another powerful influ- 
ence causes digression. There are many men who 
have such ancillary elements brought to bear upon their 
wills and upon their temperaments that they are almost 
persuaded to be Christians, and think they will be, 
but, going home in a hurry, fall in with company, and 
the day following business instincts and interests. It 
is like another scene that day. So that there is this 
changeableness in men. Then the decrease of the 
power came from the nature of the mind. There is, 
this idea however, not to be neglected— the distinc- 
tion between the man's willing and his wishing. A 



LAST DISCOURSE. 261 

great many people think that a wish is a resolution. 
Oh, it 'has gone into a proverb. 'If wishes were 
horses, then beggars might ride.' A man wishes he 
were rich, but he is too lazy, and he never will be; 
a man wishes that he knew more; probably never 
will; he is lazy; a man wishes that he could have 
entrance into certain circles in society, but the steps 
requisite he never will have patience or wisdom to 
take. You might just as well carry a candle around 
the field and think it is agriculture, because it is 
light shining on the crops. Thousands of people 
think they wish to be Christians; they don't. That 
is the interpretation given much of the instruction 
of Jesus. Men came to Him and said : ' Lord, we 
will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goesl' 'No, 
you won't; you don't know that I am destined to suf- 
fering, poverty, persecution, death; you think that I 
am going to be a royal personage and shower honors 
and gold.' 'Ah,' says one, 'I will follow thee, but 
suffer me first.' Ah, there is that ' if and ' but ' in life. 
Ten thousand people say, ' I would like to be a Chris- 
tian if,' and that settles it. ' I want to be a Christian, 
but ' — yes, that settles it again. And so Christ was 
surrounded by swarms of persons, following him 
around, wishing and wishing, with various degrees of 
excitability in them, and he put them all off; he would 
have nothing to do with them. ' Let him take up his 



262 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

cross and follow me, whosoever would be my disciple.' 
There is something to do, something to prove, and to 
wish. There is a great distinction between wishing, 
then, and willing ; for when a man wills the purpose 
carries with it the instrument to effect itself. You 
wish to be a Christian ; do you will to be one ? Your 
wishing is tantalization if ivill be accomplishment. 

" Now, Christian life is the only reasonable one, 
whether you regard it as a duty or as a means of the 
greatest satisfaction; that is to say, we were made to 
be Christians, and being a Christian is simply putting 
yourself in those relations to yourself, to your fellow- 
men and to your God for which you were created. 
Did you ever undertake to take apart a watch? That 
is very easy. Did you ever undertake to put it 
together again? That is not so easy. You don't 
know which screw goes into which hole; you don't 
know exactly which wheel goes in first; but one thing 
is perfectly certain, and that is that nothing else will 
fit together but that of which the watch was made, 
and each wheel was destined to one place and to one 
avocation, and if you can bring them together, accord- 
ing to the intent of the maker, it will perform, and 
otherwise it will not. Now, a man was built with a 
great deal more care than ever a watch was. He has 
definite relations to himself. A man was made to live 
with men, and there is only one way and one principle 






LAST DISCOURSE. 263 

on which men can live together — kindness, love. Jus- 
tice means love; justice is not something else; and we 
have a test, an example, a revelation in Jesus, in the 
Old Testament as well as in the New, but in the New 
with clearer emphasis and larger light, seeing there 
Iioav we have got to live toward our fellow men, what 
are the interlacing relations and what is the predom- 
inant spirit in which we are to treat them. ' Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Self-love is made 
to be the very model and type of that affection which 
you are to give to all people. Then we know per- 
fectly well that we are affianced to yet higher beings 
than man, and to the invisible cosmos as well as to the 
visible ; and we can not live when we are out of joint 
with any of these relations in ourselves and to our 
neighbors and to our God. Now, I say it is reason- 
able that we should endeavor to live after this type 
upon which we were created. This is reasonable. A 
great many men can; but, to the weak, Christianity is 
nothing but priestcraft, and it is not reasonable for a 
man to be damned because he could not believe, and, 
especially, because he could not gulp and swallow all 
the dogmas and all the forms. But that is wide of 
the mark. True Christianity means living in those 
relations for which we were created — harmonization of 
ourselves, harmonization of our relations to our fellow 
men, harmonization of our relation to the invisible 



264 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

future. And I say that is reasonable; I say more 
than that, that it has in it the inherent, the greatest 
amount of happiness. For although, for temporary 
reasons, a man may defer to his passions, taking the 
average and the whole life, he loses rather than gains; 
he is loser now, but suffers then. A man may think, 
because he runs through a dissipated period and then 
reforms, that the dissipation is all over. No, no, no; 
the causes sink under and run subterraneously, as it 
were; and there is many a man that has grumbled at 
forty-five years of age from the misconduct of twenty 
years. You know that there are the seventeen-year 
locusts ; they lay their eggs, and those eggs lie incu- 
bating in the ground for seventeen years; then they 
hatch and come forth. A man may by evil deeds lay 
the eggs that will hatch twenty years after that, and 
as a general truth I think it is demonstrable by actual 
observation and experience that the true happiness of 
a man lies in that self-control, in that virtue, in that 
integrity, in that love-power, which is the substance 
of religion itself. It is not learning your catechism, 
it is not learning your verses of faith, it is not going 
through ecclesiastical achievements. ' Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself.' 
Therefore, you must lift yourself, and he that lifts 
himself shows, not by partiality toward the lower and 
worst features in himself, but towards his whole self 



LAST DISCOURSE. 265 

— the regent understanding, the moral power and ele- 
ments and spiritual in him. Now, when a man has 
this presented to him, and he is urged to enter upon a 
Christian life as the only honorable one, the only one 
that has the greatest satisfaction in it, the only one 
that carries in it the idea of duty and gratitude 
towards God, how thoughtlessly men heed that. To- 
night how many are there of you that say in thus look- 
ing over the sphere of life — life to come: 'I am 
resolved what to do.' Bearing in mind what a resolu- 
tion means and what it includes, how many men caD 
say to-night, ' Yes, I am resolved what to do. ' There 
are very few of you that would say, ' I am resolved 
not to be a Christian.' That is a very hazardous 
thing, which very few men care to resolve. Men 
may say, on the other hand, ' I hope some time 
to be a Christian ; I feel sometimes as if I would like 
to be one; I wish I was one;' just as a lazy man 
wishes he had the products of industry. But how 
many men are there here to-night that can say, ' I am 
resolved what to do,' 'I am resolved what to do.' 

" Are you then resolved at once to become a Chris- 
tian? Can I be a Christian at once? In one sense, 
no ; in another sense, yes. Nobody ever learned a trade 
at a blow, but he can begin this day ; no man ever 
became a scholar by a resolution, but he never can 
become one without a resolution; it is a complex one 



266 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and a constantly repeating one, ancillary resolutions 
upholding the main one. Are you resolved to be a 
Christian to this extent — I will begin to-night ? ' I 
am resolved as far as I have light and as far as I 
know my way, I am determined, God knows I am 
determined to square my life hereafter on Christian 
principles. I am resolved to be a Christian man.' 
Now, this may include churches. I may be a Roman 
Catholic and resolve it, or a Protestant and stay out of 
that church, and stay out of any other church. This 
resolution doesn't mean I will be a Christian like to 
this scheme or that scheme, according to this church 
or that church; it simply means in its simplest form, 
its primary condition, ' I will regulate my life, both 
inside and out, according to the principles laid down 
for me by the Lord Jesus Christ.' Is not that a very 
simple thing? But what does it carry with it? It 
carries, in the first place, this: ' I will therefore begin 
by excluding everything that I know will hinder this 
resolution; from a consciously wicked way, I will 
begin as a part of the fulfilment of this resolution, I 
will stop.' That is the meaning of the repentence 
John began and Christ took up. Repent, for the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand, that is to say, I will 
get over every known wrong that is inconsistent with 
this purpose that I have formed; I am going to live 
as a Christian man, as a Christian woman ; and if there 



LAST DISCOURSE. 267 

be that which I know to be fundamentally wrong I 
shall carry out my resolution by repenting or turning 
away from that. And then, in the next place, a reso- 
lution to be a Christian applies immediately ; it is not 
that I will be a Christian next year, or by and by, or 
a long time — death, but it is going on, beginning at 
once to live, as far as I know how, righteous. Do you 
mean, then, to take the steps that are necessary? Are 
you ready to begin your attempt to live a Christian 
life by saying in sincerity, ' God show me the way ; 
give me thy help ? ' Are you willing ? Not to say 
your prayers; there are a great many prayers said; a 
great many, too few prayers that are felt and not true. 
Is there sincerity in you ? I would to God that you 
have spiritual refilling and the sustaining power of 
the whole spirit, that you have the certainty that he 
was working in me to will and to do his good pleas- 
ure. Are you ready to begin your Christian life then 
by opening the word of God and reading, not a chap- 
ter, nor a verse or two every day, but to make it the 
line of your counsel? When any great combination 
scheme is being formed in New York — any syndi- 
cate — there is always the lawyer, and they will never 
take a single step until they consult him, and he is 
about all the while; he is the man of their counsel; 
it is a complicated thing and a great deal depends 
upon it, and they can not afford to go wrong. Are you 



268 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

willing to take the New Testament as the line of your 
counsel ? See what it says about lusts, about appetites, 
what it says about crime and envy and jealousy and 
all ill will and evil speaking and all selfishness in its 
grasping moods. Are you willing to look through the 
New Testament to see what the law of the Lord is? 
Not by discussion. God will take care of his own 
defense and doesn't thank you for any help; nor has 
he any occasion to thank anybody. Are you willing 
to take the Bible just as a shipmaster takes the chart? 
"When he leaves the last shore light and takes his 
direction he never says, ' Head me a direction or two 
of the sailing directions, and then read me the draught- 
ings inside again and then again.' They have no 
relation at all to his course, to his actual sailing; but 
he is not going to read so many parts of his chart and 
of his sailing directions. Why, no; he lays out his 
voyage from the beginning and every day he takes 
observations, and then he checks down on the chart 
just where he is. At noon to-morrow he takes another 
observation ; not because there is any need of reading 
his chart, in reading any book on navigation; not 
because he is studying astronomy for the sake of any- 
thing that is in astronomy. He has got a definite 
purpose in life; after which he sells his astronomy, 
and after which he sells his books, or those which lay 
his course. Are you willing to begin a Christian 



LAST DISCOURSE. 269 

course and voyage by going to the word of God to 
ascertain exactly what is expected of you, both what 
you are to reject and what you are to adopt? That is 
sensible, that is right resolving, according to a practi- 
cal basis and resolution. Or, on the other hand, are 
you, while you are weighing, that is, in yourself, are 
you saying to yourself: ' My other people of God got 
on the best way. There is my father and mother. If 
there were ever any Christians they were such. I 
believe they were real Christians?' Now, a man's 
mother is infinitely more to him than the Virgin Mary 
is to any devout Catholic. 

" You come into the church because you find sym- 
pathy there and kindly help there. Are you willing 
to take advantage of all these kindly helps, so that 
you may be able to keep your purpose and your will ? 
Are you willing to begin it now? You don't need any 
more knowledge. You have been - brought up in 
Christian knowledge from the very cradle ; you have 
no bad associations; you have necessarily none by the 
average, but what Christian life was and Christian 
duty, is — there is not a man here that needs to 
have additional instruction; he knows that he is 
bound to live obediently to God and in love with 
Jesus Christ. But can a man come into a state of 
emotion? Can a man by simply saying I will, feel? 
No; no; but by saying I will feel he can take the 



270 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

steps to feel. A man shivers and says, ' Chills and 
fever are not agreeable; I am determined to get over 
them.' Well, you can not get over them by determin- 
ing it, but if you will take quinine enough you can. 
Now, let your purpose be not simply this, ' I am re- 
solved to be a Christian,' but ' I am resolved so unos- 
tentatiously. I am going to feel myself for all the 
help I can and all the Christian institutions that are 
necessary for my weal.' Now, that is practical, and 
that is common sense as well as moral sense. Or are 
you going to say, ' Well, I will see about it.' No, you 
won't; you know it. And that thing we have in our 
times, when a loath debtor, he has given a note for the 
sake of paying a debt — but for the sake of getting rid 
of paying it they put it off for four months, and then 
they give another note. It is the greenback business, 
in which they pay one note by giving another. There 
are multitudes of people that form a resolution for the 
sake of not fulfilling a duty, and a man says, ' Well, I 
have made up my mind I am going to be a Christian as 
soon as I get ready.' When are you going to get ready ? 
It has clouded your conscience and clouded your reason 
now by promising to do that, by and by, when the 
convenient time comes; and the devil will see to it 
that it never comes. It is a resolution that simply 
means the feeling of having done your duty. And I 
think the most scandalous meannesses and dishonorable- 



LAST DISCOUKSE. 271 

ness that can very well be imagined, when the parties 
concerned are regarded, is that resolution that people 
form to be a Christian, when they have wasted them- 
selves in the service of selfishness, and when they 
have come into old age and lie on their death-bed. I 
should think myself very mean if, in the summer 
time, I should gather a peck of peas and shell out the 
peas, and send the pods over to my neighbor as a 
present. That is what men mean to do with God; 
they mean to live in youth after their passions; they 
mean to live in middle age after their ambition; they 
mean to live in old age after ease, and before they die 
they hope to whip on the right side and get into 
heaven. When you come to examine such conduct in 
its relations to men, there is not a savage that would 
not feel that was infamous — to repay protection, 
divine benediction, the ministration of God through 
all the channels of nature and the kindness of God 
through Jesus Christ for the ministration of the gos- 
pel; and the man deliberately says, we will seek all 
the money out of these things and all the rest that is 
in life, and when we are no longer of use to ourselves 
we will repent so as to get into heaven. Two 
Dutch elders had been warm friends, and yet one 
day they fell out with each other and the fire grew 
fiercer until they came positively to hate each other, 
and one Sunday morning the dominie going behind 



272 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

one of the elders heard him mutter to himself, ' Van 
Alstyne is a hypocrite; he will go to hell, he will go 
to hell.' The old dominie spoke up to him and said: 
' Oh, oh, my brother, he won't go to hell.' ' Yes, he 
will go to hell.' 'Well, but, my dear fellow, he may 
repent.' 'No — well, he is just mean enough to do it.' 
But this is — it is, candidly — the condition in which 
some of you are. You mean to live hatefully, dis- 
obediently, dishonorably, and yet in the last estate 
you mean to whip up and get into heaven — you are 
'just mean enough to do it.' 

"Now. on the other hand, blessed be God, he is 
long suffering, and he is patient, and as we would pay 
a debt, by instalments, little by little, showing all the 
time that we endeavor to do it, he respects your 
endeavor to live, to repent and to live a Christian life, 
by instalments. 

" If you make up your mind honestly to do it, he 
will bear with your incompetence and your ignorance 
and your endearments; he will bear patiently with 
you, and help you froni day to day, and from month 
to month, and from year to year, ' growing brighter 
and brighter unto the perfect day.' Is there any man 
here that can say in regard to the past, I am resolved 
that I will cut loose from everything that has been 
a detriment to me, dishonorable to God? Is there 
any man that will say in regard to the future, ' I 



LAST DISCOUBSE. 273 

am resolved what to do? I am resolved to take a 
higher life, the nobler ideal; I am determined, by the 
help of God, that I will live in such a way that I 
should live.' And if there is, don't wait until to-mor- 
row morning; readjust your life to-night; go home 
and tell God of it; go home and tell your wife of it. 
That is the very thing you don't dare to do, because 
when a man has once committed himself he is ashamed 
to go back; and if you are ashamed to tell anybody 
' I have made up my mind to live like a Christian man,' 
it is because you have not made up your mind. When 
a man has determined that he will live a Christian 
life he will be willing to show to all that are around 
about him. ' I am going to try. I have made up 
my mind to try.' If you have, mind you will enter 
upon your journey. ' The time is past in which I 
have served the will of the flesh, and now, to-night, I 
have determined that I will begin, with the help of 
God, to live a Christian life.' Are there any of you 
that are willing to make that resolve? God help you. 
For a little while it will be a troublesome thing, for a 
little while, but then easier and easier, with remuner- 
ation and exhilaration and joy and final victory." 
At the end Mr. Beecher offered this prayer: 
" We thank Thee for the day, for the light that has 
shone, for that brighter light that we have felt. We 
thank Thee for the consciousness that has been in us 
18 



274 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

that we have been accepted of Thee, and that our 
souls are endeavoring to walk in Thy way. We thank 
Thee for the quiet of our home, and that Thou hast 
among any of us brought the twilight hour within the 
midnight, as it were. We thank Thee for the sustain- 
ing grace and for the kindling up before us of a 
brighter future interpreted by hope; and we thank 
Thee that Thou hast taught us that all things shall 
work together for good to them that love Thee. We 
have learned largely and yet are poor scholars. We 
believe that in looking back upon life we have dis- 
cerned the fulfilment of Thy declarations. The things 
that once wet us with tears we now see to have been 
mercy; the things that we sought for and mourned 
because we had them not we rejoice that they were 
denied us. Our children are perpetually getting from 
us refusals ; we rejoice that Thou art not less tender 
of us than we are of our children. And so we submit 
ourselves to Thy province and rejoice in it, and not 
alone because Thou hast declared but because Thou 
hast fulfilled in our experience Thy words. We praise 
Thee and rejoice in Thy will made known to us in the 
unfolding processes of our lives. Now, we beseech of 
Thee that Thou wilt in love chastise us ; arouse us 
from stupor ; suffer us not to lose ground as a slum- 
berous man ; we pray Thee that we may be spared by 
Thy truth and by Thy providence and have cast Thine 



LAST DISCOUESE. 277 

own soul on ours by the Holy Ghost. We beseech of 
Thee that r lhou wouldst grant unto every one of us, 
day by day, the consciousness that we are walking 
under the guide of Thyself. Sanctify to us the deal- 
ings of Thy providence, whether they are painful or 
joyful; make them all joyful, and grant unto us that 
power by which we can forego temptations ; grant unto 
us that will by which we can hold our own will in 
subjection; and grant unto us the power to hold our 
will in union with all that is right and good and work 
in us to will and to do for Thy good pleasure. We 
beseech of Thee that Thou wouldst grant Thy bless- 
ing according to the several necessities of life. To 
all that are gathered here — are we not all yet acknowl- 
edging ourselves to be Christ's in purpose or in dis- 
position? But yet Thou makest Thy sun to rise upon 
the good and the evil; Thou sendest rain upon the 
just and upon the unjust, and so are we not the chil- 
dren of Thy benefaction? Grant Thy blessing upon 
us all; make our hearts tender to Thy truth; cleanse 
our lives ; help us to search what things are individu- 
ally for advantage; accept our thanks for so many 
mercies and bounties and grant that Thou may not 
make us vain; take not away from us the hunger and 
the thirst after righteousness. Let Thy kingdom 
come in us, and Thy will be done as it is in Heaven. 
We ask it in the Redeemer's name. Amen." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

HIS WORK IS DONE. 

Mr. Beecher's last public appearance was made at 
Chickering hall, at the mass meeting to advocate the 
passage of the Crosby High-License Bill, and in favor 
of which he spoke. He said: 

" I plead for high license as mitigating our great 
peril and in behalf of every day laborer in the city 
where I am. Thousands of men there are who drink 
because they have a sorrow, or because they inherit a 
love for it, or from social bias, or social influences. I 
speak against this traffic, not because I am a minister, 
but because I am a humane man, because I love my 
neighbor. These liquor dealers not only make the 
laws, but they break them. [Laughter. J All move- 
ments to-day are converging toward the limitation of 
the saloon. I think we should have to-day restrictions 
in the form of high license, if it were not for the un- 
willingness of Prohibitionists to join with us. I think 
that if in a few years we can demonstrate that high 
license has been of great benefit to the people we shall 
have the Prohibitionists with us." 
278 






HIS WOKK IS DONE. 279 

On Tuesday lie went to Peekskill and returned on 
Wednesday morning. He was troubled with a dull 
headache, but did not think much of it. He worked 
all day at his book and went out with Mrs. Beecher in 
the evening. Thursday morning, in company with 
his wife, Mr. Beecher went to New York for the pur- 
pose of buying new furniture for the church parlors, 
which have lately been painted and altered. After 
driving around the city all day they returned to his 
home in the evening. The next day he was prostrated 
by apoplexy. 

On Saturday night the news that Henry Ward 
Beecher lay dying at his home in Brooklyn, flashed 
over the wires reaching to every part of the civilized 
world, and was the one topic of conversation and sub- 
ject of universal sympathy on Sunday. 

Not since the assassination of Garfield has there 
been so general an expression of honest and deep feeling 
as over Mr. Beecher' s bed. Not alone in the sorrow- 
ing meetings of his own people on Sunday and on 
Monday evening, but in the demeanor of the groups who 
have quietly and sadly lingered about the house, wait- 
ing for the latest bulletins ; groups made up from every 
grade of life, poor as well as rich, famous and un- 
known, mingled together; and in the general tone of 
conversation and press comment, was seen the warmth 
and extent of that wonderful personal influence that 



280 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

extended from Mr. Beecher, not only to those who 
knew him, but to those who had merely heard him speak. 

But Fortune — or, as he would have put it, Provi- 
dence — was kind to Mr. Beecher to the end. The life- 
long worker was stopped at his work. The warrior 
fell with his armor on his back. The orator's voice 
was hushed between the delivery of one sermon and 
the preparation of another. It was thus that Henry 
Ward Beecher wished to die. 

How much better that he should fall thus under a 
single swift stroke, rather than fall into an old age 
that would deny to him the activities of mind and 
body which were an inherent and inseparable part of 
himself, none knew so well as he. And it was no 
doubt the picture of himself in imagination as in 
" the lean and slipper'd pantaloon," with " big, manly 
voice turning again toward childish treble," or the 
"last scene of all," "second childishness and mere 
oblivion," that caused the still robust man of three- 
score and ten to pray often for the kind of death which 
he died. The spectacle of his remarkable sire, 
Dr. Lyman Beecher, graphically said to have been 
" the father of more brains than any other man in 
America," wandering aimlessly about, alive only from 
the head down, was familiar to the great preacher, and 
no doubt contributed to his desire to be spared such a 
fate. It would have been indeed a hard experience for 



HIS WORK IS DONE. 281 

Henry Ward Beecher to become consciously superan- 
nuated, and a sad sight for those who remembered his 
superb virility, his intellectual pugnacity, his diffusive 
humor and genial wit, to see him in a feeble old age 
waiting and longing for the summons to go. Referring 
to his father's experience he once said to a friend: "I 
know there is a purgatory, for I have seen it." Only 
last week he met on the street a member of Plymouth 
Church whose father, a strong, well-preserved man 
over eighty, had recently been stricken of paralysis 
of which he died in a few days. Mr. Beecher said to 
the son: " When my time comes I desire two things 
that were granted to your father. I want that it should 
be said of me, ' a good man has gone,' and I want to 
go in the same way." 

After the first few hours of restlessness on Thurs- 
day night (March 3) he sank into a condition of un- 
consciousness, in which, as his physicians were able to 
assure his family, he suffered little, if at all. 

The doctor met Mrs. Beecher by the bedside, and 
she asked him in a voice ' subdued but clear ' if there 
was any hope. The physician answered in deeper 
tones that appearances were disheartening, and after 
an interchange of further remarks, Mrs. Beecher sud- 
denly whispered: 

" I believe that he understands what we are say- 
ing." 



282 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

"Ask him if he does," suggested the doctor. 

With a strong effort at composure Mrs. Beecher 
raised her voice and said directly to the silent, motion- 
less figure before her: 

" Henry, do you understand what we are talking 
about?" 

A moment of profound suspense ensued and then 
the grandly shaped head moved forward and backward 
twice, and with extreme difficulty; but there was no 
mistaking the affirmation it signified. But the eyes 
remained closed. There was not even a quiver of 
the lids. 

"Perhaps he can speak," whispered Dr. Hammond; 
"tell him to say what we were talking about." 

" Henry, Henry," pleaded Mrs. Beecher, bending 
over her husband and speaking more loudly, " do you 
know what we said about you?" 

Mr. Beecher seemed to make a supreme effort. 
His lips unclosed and his breathing came more 
quickly. His right hand opened, and closed convul- 
sively, and at last a murmur of words came forth that 
fell upon ears strained to the utmost. But the eyes 
never opened. 

" You — were — saying — that — I — could — not — 
recover," was the disjointed sentence so painfully 
uttered. 

Then a strange thing happened. The words 



HIS WORK IS DONE. 283 

seemed as if spoken in a dream, but the shadow of a 
smile fluttered across the mobile mouth, only to van- 
ish into an expression almost of indifference. The 
intonation of Mr. Beecher's voice expressed absolute 
indifference, as if he spoke of the chance of life or 
death for an entire stranger. There was neither hope 
nor hopelessness, neither gladness nor sorrow, neither 
confidence nor despair. These were the only words 
he uttered. 

The Beecher house was full of birds and flowers. 
Canaries hung everywhere, keeping each other melo- 
dious company. Flowers bloomed everywhere in pots, 
and here and there roses and scattered bunches, for no 
man ever lived who loved the living ornaments sup- 
plied by nature better than he who lay upstairs. And 
oh! how blithely sang the golden-plumaged birds! 
The house was filled with their melodious chatter. 
But the ears that had loved their song so dearly 
had grown deaf. Wasted and worn, the master of 
the house lay in his second-story room, his left side 
paralyzed, his right hand now and then waving in the 
air in eloquent gesture, and his lips silently moving, 
as if, perchance, in his dreams he was preaching the 
sermon which he had failed to preach on the Sunday 
just past. Who could wonder that his children and 
grandchildren, who looked on him as a demi-god, were 
convulsed with grief in their different apartments! 



284 ANECDOTES OF HENRY ■ WARD BEECHER. 

Who could wonder that the members of his flock who 
were permitted to look upon this spectacle came down 
the steps with tottering gait, and blushed not that 
they wept in the open street! 

On the following Tuesday, he died, so peace- 
fully that his weeping wife and the relatives who 
surrounded his bed could not be sure when the final 
change had occurred. Dr. Searle stood by the bed- 
side holding one of Mr. Beecher's hands, and at 9: 30 
he said, " Mr. Beecher is no more; he is dead." 

A ray of sunlight, full and strong, flashed into the 
bed-chamber through the window just as his last 
breath was drawn. Calmly, and with no struggle, 
the regular breathing had ceased and the great 
preacher was gone. Mr. Beecher's long gray hair 
lay on the pillow, brushed back in its customary 
fashion from the broad brow. The face, though worn 
by the terrible illness and lack of nourishment, looked 
peaceful and noble. The blue eyes which had looked 
for the last time on earthly scenes were closed, and 
the eloquent tongue was silent forever. 

It is difficult to describe the scene at this moment. 
Notwithstanding the fact that his death was looked 
for — that it had been expected hourly — it seemed to 
come with such crushing force that the family were 
perfectly prostrated with grief. They could not bring 
themselves to the sad realization that the kindly, 



HIS WOKK IS DONE. 285 

musical voice of the husband, father, and grandfather 
was forever hushed in death, and that they had only 
the remembrance of his kind admonitions. Mrs. 
Beecher, who had borne up so bravely from the first, 
and who had watched so constantly at the bedside of 
her dying husband, was utterly broken down, and 
when supported by her son Harry as she tottered 
from the room looked as if it would not be long before 
she would follow her beloved husband. 

No crape was hung on the door, Mr. Beecher hav- 
ing always objected to the use of this and the gloom 
associated with it in the presence of death. Instead, 
a magnificent wreath of flowers hung from the left 
side of the doorway, at the top of the stoop, composed 
of white and red roses and lilies of the valley, and 
tied up with white satin. 

In the street outside the house the drama was but 
a repetition of that of the day before. Respectful 
crowds hung about the corner of Hicks and Clark 
streets waiting for news, eager to learn the latest 
developments. 

One of the three policemen on duty at the house 
was very deeply affected when he read the bulletin. 
He told a reporter that on Washington's Birthday he 
had called on Mr. Beecher. 

" How do you do, officer ?" said the great preacher. 



286 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHER. 

" I am always glad to see a policeman, I like to look 
at them. Is there anything I can do for you?" 

The policeman told him that the members of the 
Brooklyn department were trying to get their pay 
equalized with that of their New York brethren, and 
asked Mr. Beecher if he would sign a petition in that 
interest. 

" With pleasure," was the response, and the signa- 
ture was affixed. 

The Rev. William Beecher an elder brother of 
Henry Ward Beecher, has been a resident of Chicago 
for a good many years. A few years ago there was 
no more striking figure on the streets than his, but of 
late years he has been confined to the house. Four 
or five years ago he celebrated his 80th birthday by 
preaching a remarkable sermon at the First Congrega- 
tional Church. At that time he bore his four-score 
years lightly, but since then he has, with every added 
year, aged rapidly, and is now very feeble. 

A few days before his brother was stricken down 
Mr. Beecher had a dream which he interpreted to his 
daughter as an intimation that he was soon to be 
called home. When the family received the news of 
Henry Ward Beecher' s fatal illness his daughters 
were in doubt as to what course to pursue fearing the 
effect of the shock. They sent for the family physi- 
cian, who advised that Mr. Beecher be informed at 



HIS WORK IS DONE. 287 

mtents of the message. One of his 
daughters went lo his room and said: "Father, you 
were mistaken as to the meaning of your dreams. It 
was not you who was to be called, but Uncle Henry." 
After asking if Henry was dead, and after listening 
to the particulars, he said quietly: "His work is 
done. I would like to go in the same way." 

Mr. Beecher always manifested the greatest in- 
terest in his younger brother, Henry, and while not 
in sympathy with him in some things, was always 
ready to say a good word for him. Whenever 
Henry Ward Beecher appeared in the pulpit or on 
the platform in Chicago some member of his brother's 
family has been present, and it will be remembered 
that when some years ago Henry Ward Beecher was 
taken suddenly ill in the midst of his lecture at Cen- 
tral Music Hall, one of the first persons to reach his 
side was his niece, Mrs. Preussner. 

Within a few minutes after Mr. Beecher' s death 
was announced the bells on Plymouth Church and the 
City Hall were tolled, and half an hour later flags 
were at half mast on all the public and many private 
buildings. The shipping along the river front and 
all the Union Ferry boats carried their flags at half 
mast; the work of draping the City Hall in black was 
begun, and the entrance to the St. George's Hotel 
was in mourning before noon. 



288 ANECDOTES OF HENEY WARD BEECHEE. 

A special meeting of the Brooklyn Common Coun- 
cil was held at evening in the City Hall to take action 
in regard to the death of Mr. Beecher. A long letter 
from Mayor Whitney, eulogizing the dead Pastor, was 
read. Eesolutions which were adopted by the board 
spoke of the great loss which had been sustained by 
the people of Brooklyn, and dwelt upon the noble 
works of the dead Pastor, whose " memory ought to 
be held in lasting honor by the American people." It 
was resolved to place emblems of mourning on the 
City Hall, to close the public offices of the city on the 
day of the funeral, and that the Common Council 
attend in a body, and present the condolences of the 
board to the family of the deceased. 

The news of the death of Mr. Beecher was received 
at Peekskill, his summer residence, with profound and 
genuine sorrow, for he was well known and much 

beloved there. 

From all quarters messages of condolence and 

sympathy began to accumulate at the Beecher house. 

The following are some of them, the first being from 

the daughter of Mr. William Beecher. 

Chicago, March 8. 

)uld gladly go in 1 
brother's stead. Mary Ward Beecher. 



Col H. B. Beecher. 

Father sends sympathy. Would gladly go in his 






HIS WORK IS DONE. 289 

Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C, 
March 8, 1887. 
Mrs Henry Ward Beecher: 

Accept my heartfelt sympathy in this hour of your 
bereavement, with the hope that comfort may be vouch- 
safed from the heavenly source you know so well. 

Grover Cleveland. 

West New Brighton, March 7. 
Mrs Henry Ward Beecher: 

Be sure of our deepest sympathy and sorrow. 

George William Curtis. 

London, March 8, 1887. 
My deepest sympathy, dear Mrs. Beecher, with you 
alL Henry Irving. 

Cincinnati, March 8. 
Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher: 

The Lane Seminary Club in session this day sends 
you and your family their sympathy in your affliction. 
We are entered into the fruits of the labor of your 
husband's father in the field where your husband was 
graduated for a seminary course fifty years ago, when 
he began his great life work. We join you in the 
suffering God has laid on you and all who love our 
Savior. May the Christ your husband loved fill all your 
hearts with His grace and love and comfort in the Holy 
Ghost. H. A. Kossiter, President. 

H. P. Smith, Secretary. 

The following letter to the press about the arrange- 
ments for the funeral, was issued: 
19 



290 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

1. Strictly private funeral services will be held in 
the presence of his family at his late residence on 
Thursday, March 10, at 9:30 a. m., Rev. Dr. Charles 
H. Hall officiating. 

2. At the close of these services the body will be 
removed, under escort of the Thirteenth Regiment, 
from his late residence to Plymouth Church, where it 
will remain until Saturday morning. 

3. Upon the arrival at the church the remains will 
be placed in front of the pulpit. Company G will be 
detailed to furnish from its numbers a guard of honor 
to guard the remains until their removal to Green- 
wood. The regiment will then pass through the 
church and review the remains, after which they will 
be dismissed. 

4 The body will lie in state at the church during 
the remainder of the day, and any civic organizations 
desiring to view the remains in a body may do so. 
But to insure this such organizations should send 
notice of their intention to do so to the undersigned 
as early as 9 a. m., Thursday, and should form either 
on Hicks or Henry street, as may be assigned to them, 
as early as 11 a. m. of that day. 

5. After such civic organizations have viewed the 
remains the public will be admitted, entering Orange 
street by the way of Hicks street. 

6. When the church is closed Thursday night it 
will not be opened until 9:30 Friday morning, when it 
will be opened for the funeral services. At that time 
Orange street, from Hicks to Henry, will be closed to 




Hallway at the Peekskill House. 



HIS WORK IS DONE. 293 

all persons except those holding tickets to the ceremo- 
nies in the church. 

7. Admission to the church at that time will posi- 
tively be by ticket only. Tickets have been sent to 
pewholders and the members of the church and to 
some invited guests. 

8. At the close of the funeral services, conducted 
in the church by Rev. Dr. Hall, the congregation will 
view the remains and after them the public will again 
have an opportunity until 4 p. M. of Friday. 

9. At that hour the children of the three Sunday 
schools connected with the church, in charge of their 
superintendents and teachers, will view the remains. 

10. Upon closing the church Friday the public 
services will be closed and the removal to the ceme- 
tery will be private on Saturday morning. 

11. Notice of the action of a citizens' committee 
who have desired to take part in the funeral services 
elsewhere in the city will be given in the morning 
papers. By order of the Executive Committee. 

S. V. White, Chairman. 
"Inspector Reilly will have 100 men along the line 
of march from the house to the church as well as a 
corps of detectives. Although no request has been 
made for the services of any mounted men, a squad 
in command of Sergt. John H. Johnson, who was in 
charge of the body guard from Grant Post at the 
funeral of Gen. Grant, will keep the streets clear. 
Capt. Eason will have a force of fifty men at the 
church." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

LYING IN STATE. 

On Friday the body of Henry Ward Beecher lay in 
state and five churches of Brooklyn were crowded in 
his honor. 

Writes a member of his church: 

" He loved the people well and wrought for their 
good, and in the day of his passing they remembered. 
There were tears that his great heart was stilled and 
because they should behold him no more, but for the 
triumph of his days there was thanksgiving and all 
that was mortal of him lay among blossoms, for there 
could be no mourning that this great sentinel, after 
his long vigil and patient endurance, had found the 
reward of his valor and toil and was at peace. Death 
had sought him in the hour of rest and awakened him 
not; his eyes had closed without knowing pain, and 
with the smile of his quiet sleep still upon his lips he 
came once more to the scene of his labor, among those 
who had known him and lo^ed him. 

" The great die not, and although all that was mortal 
of him was given back to unoffended nature, the spirit 
294 



LYING IN STATE. 295 

was living and the spell of its power was yet felt in 
the temple. He loved the multitude, and the multi- 
tude came ; he loved the flowers, and a thousand thou- 
sand buds breathed their fragrance and clad his rest- 
ing-place in their beauty; he loved music, and the 
holy voice of the organ was lifted, and the anthems 
which had delighted him again rolled their harmonies 
to the rafters; he loved the sunshine, and it streamed 
through the windows and was a halo around him. No 
emblem of sorrow or parting was there, but the sym- 
bols of love and faith and hope, the glad tokens of 
resurrection, immortality and eternal reward, such as 
befitted his life, his death, and his fame, which shall 
endure, for many generations shall approve him and 
bless him. 

" There was a hush in the city he had chosen for his 
toil, and people thronged to do him reverence. The 
flag his great eloquence had helped to defend rippled 
its glories in the sun; the doors of the public build- 
ings were closed; the busy hum of commerce was 
stilled; bell answered bell from the solemn spires; 
there was the throb of drums in the street, the flaunt- 
ing of his regiment's colors and the flash of arms, and 
through the thoroughfare streamed the rich and the 
poor, men of all creeds and nationalities, the aged, 
bowed with many years and troubles, and children 
with curls tossing and cheeks aflame, mothers and 



296 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

maidens, the strong and the feeble, all pouring in one 
common stream to cast a last look on the tranquil face 
of him whose greatness was of deeds wrought for love 
of them. Orator, teacher and statesman, philosopher 
and poet, diplomat, journalist — he was these as well 
as minister of God; he was the comforter of those in 
sorrow; he was the helper of those who needed; he 
enlightened the ignorant; he fought for the slave and 
the oppressed; he defended those who were in danger; 
he lifted those who were trodden upon; he guided 
those who had wandered from the right, and his 
strength became the strength of the weak — he was all 
men's friend, and all men's thoughts now turned to 
him. 

" There was nothing of gloom in this last public 
tribute of Brooklyn to her greatest son and to the na- 
tion's foremost citizen, whose life, full of worthiness 
and honors, had fallen ripe from the branch of mortal- 
ity to become immortal. All day long, through the 
aisles which led to his coffin, passed the ceaseless 
stream, never pausing ; yet night fell and found tens 
of thousands still ungratified. Churches were 
thronged to hear his praises and thank God for such a 
man, yet not a tithe of those eager to do him reverence 
could find a foothold; the streets about his resting- 
place teemed all day with patient hundreds awaiting 



LYING IN STATE. 297 

their turn; no building in the world could have con- 
tained the myriads gathered in his name. 

"And this was the victory of death. Flowers, sun- 
light, music, the pageant of arms, the dip of the na- 
tion's colors, the recital of his glorious life and achieve- 
ments, the voice of ten thousand in thanksgiving and 
prayer, the gathering of friends and lovers, the clang- 
ing of great bells whose tongues tell only of the pass- 
ing of the great, the stopping of the wheels of busy 
life, the hush upon the city — these were answers to 
the boast of the Destroyer, and upon the lips of the 
mighty dead was a smile of love and of peace to tell 
all who beheld him that his last slumber had been 
blessed and was welcome. 

"There were flowers — flowers everywhere — in Ply- 
mouth Church. The casket looked only a mound of 
blossoms, for its sides and supports were hidden in a 
swathing band of roses and its top was lost under a 
white coverlid of lilies of the valley, with just enough 
green to break the glare of the white mass. The plat- 
form was out of sight, and all that could be seen as a 
background for the coffin were great masses of buds, 
of bloom, of blossoms — white roses and pink, and lilies 
by the hundred. Climbing up to the gallery rail, the 
rich profusion of the florist's art extended, and then 
seizing the organ front, the greenery ran up, with 
great callas and tiger lilies flecking the green ground 



298 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

until the ornamentation lost itself in an outburst of 
mingled white and green close under the ceiling at the 
top of the organ case. Extending away along the 
sides of the church ran the surplusage of love-sent 
blossoms. Green festoons were on the walls, while at 
certain points on the balcony front, the rich gems of 
the world of flowers were effectively concentrated. At 
one other point, too, there were flowers, rich in color 
and odor, lovingly laid by hands which for forty years 
had sustained the Plymouth pastor in his church work. 
Those pieces were in the third pew to the right of the 
central line of the church— in the pew where the great 
pulpiteer and leader of the people so often looked to 
gather inspiration from the motherly face of the wife 
who had helped so much to make him what he was. 

" This was the interior to which millions would have 
gone and in which thousands did gather. The weather 
could not have been better — clear sunlight, crisp, brac- 
ing air — on just such a morning Pastor Beecher would 
have filled his lungs for joy and shouted in the exu- 
berance of the youthful spirits which were always his. 
It seemed as if many thought they could not be too. 
early at the side of the bier, and fully two hours be. 
fore the time announced for the opening of the doors 
there was a throng in Orange street gathered before 
the plain old barn-like edifice which Mr. Beecher 
thought so beautiful. 



LYING IN STATE. 299 

" The doors were opened at 9 o'clock. An hour pre- 
vious a coach took the chief mourner of all the thou- 
sands to the place. This was Mrs. Beecher. She 
came, supported by her son, and, throwing her arms 
around the flower-laden casket, wept long and deeply. 
It had been her desire to attend the main services, but 
the effect of the surroundings, when she was compara- 
tively alone in the church, was so great that the family 
physician dissuaded her from any further effort, and 
when Colonel Beecher led his mother from the casket 
side, it was to take her to the seclusion of her bereaved 
home, there to weep in unison with the thousands 
gathered in so many churches. 

" When the doors were opened it required something 
of a battle on the part of the police to prevent a great 
crush.. At either end of the street block a line of po- 
lice stopped all passers-by save such as were provided 
with tickets. Then at the one door another squad of 
police somewhat awkwardly got the gathering filtered 
down into something like a line, and the great edifice 
began to fill. There were seats reserved for the spe- 
cial guests on the main floor, and in the galleries a 
section was set apart for the press and there forty re- 
porters were massed. 

" It was an odd gathering in one sense. Not a trace 
of mourning garb anywhere, not one of the customary 
habiliments of woe. It was an assemblage appropri- 



300 ANECDOTES OF HENBY WARD BEECHER. 

ately dressed, but no long black pall caught the eye, 
no crape, no heavy fringing of sombre hangings. The 
illogical insignia of grief were absent. Beecher had 
preached for fifty years that death to the Christian was 
the opening gateway to a better life; that it was a 
time of joy in a spiritual view, and that this view 
should be made prominent after death. The expres- 
sion of this idea was the keynote to the whole proceed- 
ing. There was a sense of bereavement hanging over 
the Avhole and weighing down every heart, but the oc- 
casion was ridden, as far as could be, of every sugges- 
tion of desolation and misery. Such strangers as were 
present, and there were many, looked with something 
of wonder at it all. The regular attendants at the 
gospel of love and joy, of which Mr. Beecher has been 
so long a zealous apostle, were not surprised. To them 
the whole arrangement seemed one of Mr. Beecher's 
own * ordering. 

" There were members' tickets issued to the number 
of 2,500. These- brought many faces well known in 
public life and added to the list of those present many 
names known far and wide in connection with big 
events, great schemes and prominent position. They 
were scattered all over the church and the number of 
gray-haired men, men who have won fame and renown, 
was commented on as showing what a close hold he 
had upon the best thought of the time. 



LYING IN STATE. 301 

"In a dozen pews near the front were members of 
the Brooklyn Clerical Union, to which Mr. Beecher 
belonged. They were of all denominations, and among 
them were Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Luther- 
ans, Baptists, and Methodists. Further in the rear 
was a .group of sable mourners. They came in a body 
and were seated with quiet respect and attention. 
They were a company of representative colored clergy- 
men who had sent as a floral token a large plaque 
with the inscription, " The Friend and Champion of 
the Slave," and then had come to hear the spoken 
words of praise and respect over the remains of one 
who had done so much for their race. 

" There was scant room left for those who were to 
conduct the services, after the thousands of roses 
had been heaped up about the platform. Two chairs 
had been crowded in among the natural ornaments. 
One other chair was there, but its broad proportions 
were lost under protecting blossoms, lest any should 
profane his chair by sitting in it at such a time. In 
the narrow space, such as it was, was Rev. Dr. Charles 
H. Hall, clad in the white surplice and black scarf of 
the Episcopal Church vestments. It was the only bit 
of black seen in any official way in connection with the 
ceremony. He began directly and simply with the 
grand words of the Anglican Church ritual, " I am the 
resurrection and the life," and read a few passages, 



302 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

when the choir took up the strain in the burial chant, 
"Lord, let me know mine end," rendered as an anti- 
phonal chant." 

The lesson of the day was read from the fifteenth 
chapter of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, 
beginning with the twentieth verse. The minister 
read from a small copy of the ritual, which he had 
carried to the platform with him. There were no 
graces of elocution about his effort. He seemed at 
times as though about to break down through the feel- 
ing which was almost too strong to master. He 
seemed relieved when he could turn again to the 
bank of flowers behind him as to an altar, and stood 
with bowed head in a prayerful attitude while the 
choir above rose up and gave Spohr's anthem, " Blessed 
are the Departed," with Mrs. Shelley, Mrs. Kosan, and 
Messrs. Graff and Levinson as members of the quar- 
tette and a full chorus. It was a worthy effort. Dr. 
Hall turned and from a manuscript read the funeral 
oration. 

As by a common agreement, a thousand eyes welled 
out tears, and all over the house, among the invited 
guests on the main floor, among the members "of the 
church and the ladies in the galleries, handkerchiefs 
were applied to wipe away the drop from eyelid and 
cheek. They saw the scene which the word-picture 
of the orator brought before them. They saw their 



LYING IN STATE. 303 

beloved preacher as lie was, and then the silent mound 
of flowers reminded them that he was not, and the 
tears started despite all efforts at repression. The 
oration was not long, but it was not too short for 
the speaker, who more than once found it necessary 
to readjust his spectacles. 

Dr. Hall said: "The hand that rests so still yon- 
der laid aside the pen over a page of the unfinished 
' Life of Christ.' Possibly the last flash of thought, 
as the conviction grew upon him of the probable end 
of life, was that his work was to be left unfinished — 
that he had not told men all that he would have them 
know of that precious revelation. Possibly, as the 
spirit fled away to be with Christ, whom he had been 
serving, the full knowledge came to him of that shore- 
less ocean of eternal life, Avhich is to know God and 
Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent — that is, the beatific 
vision, the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. 

" We dwell on one tiny bay of it here and dream 
about it. The departed saints of God have already 
put out on its immeasurable spaces, and learned that the 
life of Christ is never finished. It is the one word of 
God which is ever being spoken — echoing again and 
again, on and on with ceaseless reverberations, down 
the centuries. If there was one thing that stirred the 
heart that now rests from its labors more than any 
other, that has marked his life and makes his memory 



304 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

precious to us now, it was his many-sided utterances 
of a Christ living, as going about among men, a mas- 
ter who first and last asks us to believe in him 
rather than to believe what others say about him. 
The radical question of this age has been : ' Is there a 
faculty of illuminated reason to recognize a living 
Christ, who can talk to us, and by the great communi- 
cation of his Mind and Spirit directly lead us to all 
truths?' As monarchies and hereditary institutions 
and at last African slavery have fallen to the dust, the 
question gathers voice and insists upon an answer — it 
will not be put off by any compromises with past 
orders and institutions — but renews itself at every 
turn, echoes in every advance in science or art, comes 
up in every development of literature and social 
progress. ' Is there a faith in a Christ behind the 
consciousness of the individual that can be to him the 
very word of God, the illuminated mandatory con- 
science?' In a country that dreams as yet of a gov- 
ernment of the people by the people and for the peo- 
ple that question is inevitable, and even if it should 
send the sword among us for a while in the effort for 
peace, it must be answered. It is not an accident 
then, altogether, that the man whose life has been 
moulded by that question and its possible answers 
should have paused on the unfinished volume of ' The 
Life of Christ.' 



LYING IN STATE. 305 

" He lias been a man of the people, Christwards. 
We remind you that though the English-speaking race 
to-day mourns his call and recognizes his loss, the 
Americans feel that he has been a great leader or 
adviser in the guidance of all manner of substantial 
interests, though the Legislature of the State has paid 
him an unusual honor — of adjourning — as his right, 
though the presses and divines and orators of all 
degrees are trying to compass the mighty theme in 
glowing words, in words of exulting grief that we 
have had him with us so long — and have lost him — 
yet that as he lies there so quiet, we may look at him 
as one who has been, through all and in all things, an 
apostle of one supreme thought, a preacher of the 
everlasting Gospel of the ever living Christ. You 
who kneAv him best — you who have listened to 
him here in this church, know well, that first, last and 
always, in no barren or dreaming sense, his life has 
been absorbed in this work and hid with Christ in 
God. In the prayers which he breathed out here for 
forty years so simply, you have been hearing an inner 
echo as if it had come out of the heart of Jesus. 
In his ordinary teaching, in lectures and sermons, the 
one thought in them has been to lead you to believe — 
not something about Christ, but to believe himself. 
In his intellect — his heart, his common life — wher- 
ever we, his neighbors, have felt him — he has been 
20 



306 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a witness to the presence of a Word of God, the ideal 
man, the light that lightens every man that cometh 
into this American world, that cometh into this Brook- 
lyn life — that cometh within reach of the testimonies 
of this platform. Perhaps some would have wished 
him to have shown tender care of the withes that 
bound him as with nine-fold strand, but God sent on 
him the fire that burned them and it was not for him 
to stay its power. Men talk occasionally of his lack 
of a theological system, of quotations and learned 
references and courtesies to the authoritative erudition 
of past ages. But the living Christ is always greater 
than divinities or creeds. The cry is as old as Chris- 
tianity. ' If we let this man thus alone, the Romans 
will come and destroy our city.' Jesus, to the Phari- 
sees, had never learned letters, and yet the common 
people heard him gladly. As in his war on slavery, 
there were few persuasive authorities, individual or 
ecclesiastical, to go back to and set in among, and he 
could only fall back on a living Christ, as Seward did 
on a ' higher law.' So the undertone of his life here 
has been a faith in Christ, a faith filled with New 
England sap and silicates, a faith freed by the tonic 
airs of wild prairies and vigorously set to work here 
on every department of human life in which the 
Creator may be imagined to take art interest. 
Please note that we are here ' to bury him, not to 



LYING IN STATE. 307 

praise him.'. My opinion may be indulged that the one 
fact about him, which endures in that life into which 
he has now gone, was his fidelity to the great law 
of faith, which, in its last analysis, means that he has 
taken his part in making the life of Christ a reality. 
He would be the first to allow that in this work there 
is a law that reverses to the eye all worldly modes of 
comparison. ' The last shall be first and the first 
last. 1 The poorest serving girl that has caught the 
meaning of his preaching and hid her hard life in 
Christ's wondrous love, and now meets her spiritual 
teacher in Paradise, finds him gladly confessing his 
wonder at their surroundings — as being, like her, 
' a sinner saved by grace.' 

" If the life of Christ is never finished then we 
may consent to go to all manner of teachers for in- 
struction about it, and wade through all manner of 
learned wisdom, and accept for trial all manner of 
hereditary experiments so as to know all that we may 
about him, but then to cast them all aside in his pres- 
ence when that light that shone on Saul of Tarsus 
comes blinding down on us, and to ask, ' Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do ? ' This is my thought of 
him to-day. This single chaplet I would put upon his 
coffin. He lived, moved and had his being in the 
Word of God, on its cisatlantic side and spoken in its 
American accent. The children of the poor, the 



308 ANECDOTES OF HENHY WARD BEECHEK. 

oppressed and the afflicted, the slaves, the publicans, 
sinners, have had a gospel preached unto them here 
by a preacher who had little apparent anxiety about 
the serried files of systematic divinities, in imitation 
of One who somehow seemed to value more a voice 
that came to him at times out of a blue sky, ' This is 
my beloved Son,' or again saying when his soul was 
troubled, ' I have glorified and will glorify again.' 
The poor, weary souls who have accepted this gospel 
at his hands have rejoiced with the peace which the 
world does not give — and, thank God ! can not take 
away. 

"Is the Life of Christ ever finished? Is not always 
the last volume lying in sheets wanting the last touch 
- — always receiving the newest revelation of its oldest 
meanings? Give a glance at his history. St. Luke, 
the most scholarly of the Evangelists, supposed that 
he had finished it once — but now we hear from him, 
' The former treatise, O Theophilus ! of all that Jesus 
began (erocato) both to do and to teach ' — began, not 
finished. There was a new power in the world coming 
to the surface. There was a mystical Christ, entering 
into the weary heart of humanity and continuing both 
to do and to teach. St. Luke tells us of an Hellen- 
istic youth who pleaded with radiant face against the 
blindness of hereditary traditions, and saw ' the glory 
of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.' 



LYING IN STATE. 309 

At his word the scholar of Gamaliel rides forth to 
crush the new heresy that threatens to break down the 
old traditions and is smitten to the earth with the 
splendors of the new Shekinah in the temple of the 
individual heart and starts on a new career. Or again, 
Paul goes back to the old temple of his fathers and 
Jesus confronts him there, and bids him depart and 
go far hence to the Gentiles. Men became possessed 
with an inspiration that changed all things with a 
royal regeneration, and it is Jesus always who contin- 
ues to do and to teach. Miracle passes into law and 
the Evangelist has only begun again the story of the 
unending life and left its final volume unwritten. 

" St John the Divine once thought that a gospel of 
his had told the wondrous story of that sacred life — 
but again, on a holy evening as he mused, lo! the 
high priest stood before him in the great temple of 
the universe, and gathered the splendors of the sunset 
clouds as his garments and took on the sound of many 
' waters ' as his voice, and royally served the little 
churches of Asia, in what men now call the ■ progress 
of events.' His message was, ' I am he that liveth 
and was dead; and, behold I am alive for evermore, 
Amen! and have the keys of death and hades.' So 
John tried to give utterance to the grander sides of 
Jesus. Before, in his gospel he had posed him as 
meek and lowly, sitting languid with the summer heat 



310 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WAED BEECHER. 

and dusty with the way ; as he wrote it, ' sitting thus 
on the well.' Now he shows him as still on the earth, 
the high priest making intercession — the knightly 
Rider — the throned Lamb of God — the King of Kings 
and Lord of Lords. Did his life end with the Apoca- 
lypse ? Let the sufferings and triumphs of the Christ 
that remained answer. 

" So again, when Northern barbarians crushed the 
fair and seemly defenses of Roman civilization in 
which the Church was tempted to rest — then the 
great Bishop of Hippo revealed to his age the city of 
God — the spiritual organization of the mystical Christ 
and his kingly reign began. 

" So again, when the brutal age ensued, of fierce con- 
tests with iron-mailed kings and savage lords, the 
great Hildebrand roused the faithful to a new obedi- 
ence to organized spiritual forces as supreme, and 
founded the papal throne as the visible sacrament of 
an invisible monarch. The crosier testified again to a 
higher conception of the great high priest, who went 
forth with every poor missionary, monk or hermit, and 
thrilled all Europe with new life. When that rule be- 
came in time corrupt and tyrannical, other men of 
renown arose to recall their ages to the Christ who 
bade every soul find its justification in faith and 
accept from him directly its election to the everlasting 
decree of the ageless Creator. 



LYING IN STATE. , 311 

" But to come at once to our American soil, every 
advance that the world has made has been towards the 
rights of all men, to a free conscience, to equality of 
privilege, man with man, and to the solemn duty of 
faith in a Christ, who comes to all directly in the 
might of the spirit and mind of Jesus. Forty years 
ago that question of a living Christ, in whom to live 
and believe, was knocking at the doors of men's con- 
sciences, on the side of orthodox traditions. On its 
intellectual side it was bound to disturb the whole 
Christian life of this country. 

" That question was predestined to produce some 
man or some men who would be driven to reinvestigate 
the platforms, which had sufficed for a humbler past. 
Whether this man has done it well or ill we leave to 
the verdict of the future. He has certainly compelled 
all men to think of it and recognize it. He has left a 
broad mark upon the Christian life of his age — rather 
a stimulus in its heart to earnest and devout effort to 
make the Christ a true presence, to honor daily life as 
capable of a genuine transubstantiation, so that a plain 
man may say now as an earnest man once said, 'I am 
crucified with Christ — nevertheless I live; yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live 
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me and gave Himself for me.' Making no pre- 
tense to being a theologian or a scholar, my faith rests 



312 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in the possibility of an illuminated conscience. My 
gratitude goes forth to him who lies here, that he has 
enunciated that creed with body, soul and spirit. He 
loved all things, and his eloquence has adorned and 
beautified all in subservience to that belief. If the 
Christ indeed now feeds the oil to the golden lamps of 
special churches and lives on as truly God-with-us as 
ever he was, our brother comprehends that his last 
symbol of earthly work was properly the unfinished 
volume of his ' Life of Christ. 1 Let us follow him as 
he followed Christ. Let us turn away to another 
thought. Abraham was to the Israelite, in some 
things, what Jesus is to us — the type of a covenant 
system. We now refer to him in a single point. The 
Lord came to the old Hebrew of His own divine will, 
as He saw him somewhat resting in earthly happiness, 
and tried him to the quick— deliberately shocked him 
into those days of awful agony — with his very faith on 
the totter. Then, as the angelic vision held back his 
hand the patriarch found in his trial the ideal of the 
cross. He ' saw the day of Christ and was glad. 1 
Paul, in the same line, tells us of a desire in his heart 
'to know the power of the resurrection and the fellow- 
ship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his 
death ; if by any means he might attain unto the resur- 
rection of the dead. 1 Jesus also means much the same 
when He bids us take up our crosses and follow Him. 



LYING IN STATE. 313 

Whenever He sees us too full of earthly wishes or 
cares or success, and in danger from prosperity, He 
does for us what He did for Abraham and Job and 
Paul, and what He did for our brother. He sends 
a cloud over prosperity to win us by wholesome dis- 
cipline, ' if by any means we can attain unto the 
mysteries of the resurrection.' A brave and weary 
heart is here at rest — brave of old to dare brutal 
force and to defy the violence of mobs and ruffians 
in speaking for the slave; brave to accept the mur- 
murs and doubts of his political friends, when con- 
science prompted him to part from them ; bravest to 
wrestle alone with a great sorrow, when he could find 
no earthly help. We honor him for the courage of his 
former acts — we love him and wonder at him for the 
calm, sweet, gentle resignation of these last years. 
God, I believe, has led him step by step to spend his 
last days among us with a wisdom gained from the 
cross ; a tender, gentle, soberer wisdom which helped 
him to see ' the Captain of our Salvation, who was 
made perfect through suffering, that we may all be as 
one, and the great sufferer not ashamed to call us 
brethren.' 

" On Sunday evening in this place, two weeks ago, 
after the congregation had retired from it, the organist 
and one or two others were practising the hymn 



314 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

I heard the voice of Jesus say, 
Come uuto me and rest. 

" Mr. Beecher, doubtless with that tire that follows 
a pastor's Sunday work, remained and listened. Two 
street urchins were prompted to wander into the build- 
ing, and one of them was standing, perhaps, in the 
position of the boy whom Raphael has immortalized, 
gazing up at the organ. The old man, laying his 
hands on the boy's head, turned his face upward and 
kissed him, and with his arms about the two left the 
scene of his triumphs, his trials and his successes 
forever. 

" It was a fitting close to a grand life, the old man 
of genius and fame shielding the little wanderers, 
great in breasting traditional ways and prejudices, 
great also in the gesture, so like him, that recognized, 
as did the Master, that the humblest and the poorest 
were his brethren, the great preacher led out into the 
night by the little nameless waifs. 

" The great ' Life of Christ ' is left unfinished for 
us to do our little part, and weave our humble deeds 
and teachings into the story. Men will praise our 
brother for genius, patriotism, victories and intel 
lectual labors. My love for him had its origin in his 
broad humanity, his utter lack of sham, his transpar- 
ent love of the ' unction from above ' that dwells in 
and teaches and beautifies the lines of duty. He said 



LYING IN STATE. 315 

of his father, ' The two things which he desired most 
were the glory of God and the good of men.' So was 
it with him, as the hearts of grateful myriads attest. 
But we bid him here farewell, and to me oftenest will 
come the vision of him, passing out of 'yonder door 
with his arm about the boys, passing on to the city of 
God, where he hears again the familiar voice of the 
Master saying, ' Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' 
" And now, brethren of Plymouth Church, I have 
fulfilled the promise made to my friends, I have 
offered my whole heart to the public simply to show 
that I loved him. and loved him dearly enough to pay 
his memory the little honor that I have. The bond 
that has bound us together, though often unknown to 
many and not very often expressed, I believe can word 
itself in two voices of a Quaker poet of America. Our 
dear brother and I, although he was a Congregation- 
alist and I an old hereditary Episcopalian, both like 
the Quaker, believing in the Spirit's presence, alike 
held these words as true: 

" ' I sit beside the silent sea, 

And await the muffled oar; 
No harm from him can come 

To me on ocean or on shore. 
I know not where his islands lift 

Their frondent palms in air; 
I only know I can not drift 

Beyond his love and care.' " 

As he closed he turned to Rev. Mr. Halliday and 



316 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

invited him to pray. The associated pastor had been 
sitting in the shadow of a great spreading palm, his 
eyes red with weeping, and his face as thorough a pic- 
ture of woe as one could wish to see. He rose, 
caught the familiar reading-stand for support, and 
then, amid his sobs, in a voice lost often as he gulped 
down some rising sigh, he said: "Oh, God, we come 
to thee, but our hearts are very sore and heavy with 
care and sorrow as we look up to thee this morning, 
for thou hast called one welcome and dearly beloved 
from our midst. O Lord, help us and draw near to us 
and make us realize even in this sore hour of trial, 
as we come to thee this morning, that thou art 
our God, that thou art a living and good God. We 
thank thee that we may come thus to thee. "We look 
to thee as though thou art in the flesh; we remember 
thy work of mercy; we remember thy tender sym- 
pathy. Our hearts are so sore when thou dost not 
visit us and our souls so depressed when thou dost not 
extend thy solace and comfort to them. As little chil- 
dren run to their mothers when their hearts are sore 
or weary for comfort, so here in the child spirit we 
come to thee this morning. We bring our hearts to 
thee, sore, for thee to heal them. ( Sobs. ) We have 
many, many things to be thankful for, even in this 
hour of sorrow. Oh, how mercifully we rejoice and 
give thee thanks. We do bless thee, O God, our 



LYING IN STATE, 319 

Heavenly Father, that thou didst spare our dear 
pastor to us so long; that he was with us so many 
years, and that thou hast given the thought to us to- 
day that we have not lost him. He is not dead. 
There comes back to us from the other eternal shore 
the voice of him we so dearly loved, 'I still live.' O 
God, we feel that we have not lost him, but we know 
that thou hast called him on high and that he is only 
awaiting our coming to him. Then, O Lord, may we 
not rejoice that it is but a very brief separation, and 
that we are not so far separated by space as it seems 
to us? O Lord, come thyself this morning to us and 
help us to realize this. We have loved him ; we shall 
love him none the less that he is where he is this 
morning. O God and Father, although he is away 
from us, yet is he not with us? Do not the poor ones 
that have gone from us, and are with him now, look 
down upon us? Have our fathers and mothers for- 
gotten us? How he loved us while he was here! 
Will he love us less now that he is with thee? Oh, 
will it not be with an affection transcendently beyond 
that which he had for us here? He knew our faults. 
He sees them now in another light. Blessed Lord, 
come to us this morning and imbue us with comfort; 
touch us with the soft hand that thou didst lay on the 
heads of the little children and blessed. O God, we 
would be as little children before thee to-day. 



320 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Now, our Heavenly Father, we ask thee that thou 
wouldst endow us with strength and help us to make 
such use of this occasion that thou mayest be glorified 
and that souls may be redeemed. O Lord, thou seest 
how wide this sorrow is; it is not shut up in this 
house; it is not shut up in the bosom of this bereaved 
family ; it is universal. O Lord, we feel very grateful 
that thou hast given to us the sympathy of thy people. 
We thank thee that though we have had so much sor- 
row thou hast given us the sympathy of so many. God 
bless all who have pitied us and who have loved us, 
and, O Lord, grant that we may reward them in the 
time when trouble comes to them. Give to them a 
thousand-fold of what they have granted unto us. We 
pray it not for our city alone, but for all lands where 
the words of our beloved pastor have gone. O Lord, 
although he is dead as our pastor, his words are alive 
to us. We pray thee, our Father, accept our thanks 
that Ave may come so near to thee that we can open 
wide the portals of our hearts to thee. Thou knowest 
our wants better than we. Come, then, our Father, 
and supply all that we need — all the wants of this 
great people. And we pray thee, our Heavenly 
Father, now to help us to be moulded by the teach- 
ings that he who is gone from us gave us so long, and 
that the world so largely enjoys. Remember, our 
Father, those, if there are any, who are not in with 



LYING IN STATE. 321 

us. Oh, God, we pray thee to bless them the 
same as those who have sympathy with us. Oh, 
may the spirit of Christ come to them and dwell 
amongst us all. We thank thee for sending our dear 
friend to us ; we thank thee for his kindness in speak- 
ing to us to-day. Bless him for his labor of love; 
bless him in his love and bless him in his ministry. 
May his life be full of peace and joy. Now Ave com- 
mend to thee, Our Father, this morning the dear fam- 
ily from out of the midst of whom our beloved pastor 
has gone, whose fond form they will see no more, 
whose sweet voice is to be heard by them never more. 
O Lord, come very near to that family, who will" sink 
under this blow if thou dost not uphold them by thy 
grace, which is sufficient. We pray thee to speak 
gracious words unto us out of thine abundant store- of 
comfort. Oh, mayest thou be so near to us that while 
the form is yet here with us we may know of thy pres- 
ence with us and be comforted by thy voice saying, 
•It is I, be not afraid.' O Lord, be with us, not alone 
in this day, but, in the days that are to come, remem- 
ber that as dear children who have parted with their 
beloved father, we need thy constant strength and 
comfort. We commend to thee not only the family 
but all the relatives. God bless and comfort them. 
May their hearts be glad and may they take courage 



322 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in thee. Hear our prayer, poor and broken as we 
offer it, for Jesus 1 s sake. Amen." 

The ritual was taken up at this point, and the 
hymn, " Jesus, lover of my soul," after Zundel's 
arrangement, was given in magnificent voice by the 
chorus, while the whole congregation glad of a chance 
to sing, lost some of its grief, and chased away many 
a rising crying spell as the whole soul was poured out 
in the familiar strains. The burial service followed, 
with its assuring sentences. As the words, " Dust to 
dust, ashes to ashes!" were uttered, undertaker Hop- 
per dropped some earth upon the soft layer of flowers. 

Then with the giving of the hymn, '"Love Divine," 
to the tune " Beecher," by Zundel, the service formally 
closed by Dr. Hall asking that the congregation 
resolve itself] into a procession and pass by the coffin. 
The undertaker removed the cover and pushed back 
the flowers from over the face. One rose dropped to 
to the carpet and 3,000 envious eyes watched a lady 
pick it from the floor and pin it at her throat. Mr. 
Halliday stood with his hands clasped resting on the 
stand above, looking down on the familiar face. From 
the front pews the brothers of Mr. Beecher who were 
present first led their families past the casket and 
then all went in reverent tread to look for the last 
time upon the face of the dead. The organ played 
and Mrs. Lasar-Studwell, who had so long been a 



LYING IN STATE. 323 

favorite singer of the dead pastor, poured out her soul 

in feeling strains as the long line moved by the 

casket. The choir sang the one hymn which Mr. 

Beecher loved above all others, reading: 

" My days arc gliding swiftly by, 
And I, a pilgrim stranger, 
Would not detain them, as they fly, 
Those hours of toil and danger." 

Everybody sang and many went singing their way 
from the church. The line of mourners embraced all 
the prominent persons named and none passed in 
more reverent step than did the humble Dr. McGlynn. 
An hour, and the last had looked and left, and then for 
hour after hour the long line from without came in. 
Men, women and children who had filled a line in the 
sharp morning air, six broad, up Orange Street and 
down Henry, nearly to the bridge, moved slowly up, 
willing to wait, if only it were possible to look once 
again upon the pinched face, with its smile, below the 
heavy parapet of flow r ers. 

By actual count, between seventy and seventy-five 
persons a minute got a chance to look at the life-like 
face of the dead p'reacher. Strong men wept and 
hurried by as if afraid that their emotions would 
overcome them. Along about 2 o'clock in the after- 
noon the crowd became so large that word was sent 
along the line to hurry the people. Lieut. Brown was 
at the organ playing a slow funeral march, but he 



324 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

quickly increased the tune, and for about an hour 110 
persons a minute saw the remains. 

At 4: 30 o'clock the outside doors were closed, and 
then the little children of the Bethel and Mayflower 
missions, attended by their teachers, entered the 
church through the east rear door and passed up the 
aisle to the vestibule and down the center aisle. A 
platform about a foot high was put alongside the 
casket, and on this the little ones stood. Some of 
them were so small that the sentries had to lift them 
up and hold them over the glass cover. 

The most touching incident of the day occurred 
about 5 o'clock, when the scholars of Plymouth Sun- 
day-school came to pay their last respects to the illus- 
trious preacher whom they knew so well. They 
carried roses in their hands, and as they walked past 
the casket they tenderly laid their flowers upon it till 
the mound of loosely-strewn roses grew to a height of 
almost three feet. Meanwhile the crowd outside 
waited patiently in the biting wind that raced down 
Orange Street and made it very unpleasant to stand 
still. At 5: 15 o'clock the doors were opened again, 
and from then until nearly 9 o'clock the line con- 
tinued its march. Even then the good deacons of the 
church were loath to leave, and they allowed all those 
who came to see the remains up to 10 o'clock. Then 
the doors were closed and the lights were turned 



LYING IN STATE. 325 

down. A number of ladies, members of the church, 
gathered around the casket and bade their pastor a 
long farewell. Deacon Shearman distributed a hand- 
ful of roses which he took from the casket among the 
ladies as souvenirs of the occasion. Then the police- 
men and soldiers of company G looked into the casket, 
and the organ stopped playing, and the church was 
closed. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MINISTERS, TOILERS AND EVERYBODY. 

The same day, Dr. Taluiage, in his own church, 
service, drew three lessons from the life of the departed 
clergyman. 

" As our departed friend can gain nothing from all 
the utterances of to-day, I ask myself what can be 
learned for the living? Three lessons: One for the 
ministers of religion; one for all toilers with the 
brain; one for everybody. 

"Lessons for the ministers of religion: The power 
of similitude. Of all the metaphysical discourses 
you ever heard Mr. Beecher make you remember noth- 
ing, but his illustrations live and will live with you as 
long as your memory continues. His audiences waited 
for them. They rose up with flashing eye when they 
saw he was approaehing a similitude. That was what 
most impressed you at the time. That was what you 
carried away with you. Much of his discourse was 
employed in telling what things were like. And so 
Christ moved his hearers. His Sermon on the Mount 
and all his sermons were filled with similitudes. Like 



MINISTERS, TOILERS AND EVERYBODY. 327 

a man who built his house on the rock. Like a candle 
on a candlestick. Like a hen gathering her chickens 
under her wing. Like a net. Like a grain of salt. 
Like a city on a hill. • Like treasures that moth and 
rust can not corrupt. Like pearls before swine. Like 
wolves in sheep's clothing. And you hear the song of 
birds as he says: ' Behold the fowls of the air,' and 
you smell the flowers as he says: ' Consider the lilies 
of the field.' The grandest effects produced by Mr. 
Beecher were wrought by his illustrations and he ran- 
sacked the universe for them and he poured them 
forth in floods and timbered sermonic literature from 
dry and dull didactics into a marvelous resiliency. 
He began the war which I hope will be carried on 
until everything like humdrum shall be driven from 
all the pulpits of Christendom. It is complained that 
the Sunday newspapers keep people away from church. 
Then we must make our church services more inter- 
esting and more helpful than anything the people can 
get outside the church. We all need in our pulpits a 
holy vivacity, a consecrated alertness and illustrative 
facilities that shall be irresistible. From the day that 
Mr. Beecher came from Indianapolis until his last 
sermon in Plymouth pulpit it was a victory of simili- 
tude. Let all ministers of religion, especially all 
young ministers, learn the lesson. 

" The second lesson is for all toilers with the brain, 



328 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and that is the danger of overwork. After Mr. 
Beecher's brain, like a swift courser, had dashed along 
for nearly seventy-four miles, lo! it is hitched to half 
a dozen new loads, any one of which might be enough 
to break down a fresh brain. After fifty years of in- 
cessant and exciting work, cisatlantic and transatlantic, 
he allows himself to be harnessed to a syndicate of let- 
ters, to a life of Christ, to an autobiography, and to a 
half dozen other enterprises. At a time when he had a 
right to slow up, as the engineers say, the throttle- 
valve is pulled for new velocities. "With health and 
strength enough to have kept him in active pastorate 
for at least ten years more, crash! goes the whole 
mental and physical machinery. But that is the way 
the most of the toilers of the brain go. Somehow we 
get under the delusion that we must enter all the 
doors of usefulness opened. Well, if a man has been 
industrious with his brain, by the time he reaches his 
fiftieth year there are a hundred doors of usefulness 
open all around, ninety-nine of which he ought to de- 
cline to enter. But of overwork Horace Greeley went, 
Henry J. Raymond went, and one-half of the ministers 
and attorneys and doctors and journalists are going. 
Oh, that some one would invent an ometer which, 
hung over the heart and lungs, might decide when a 
man ought to stop brain work. The man who invented 
such an ometer would make a fortune for himself and 



MINISTERS, TOILERS AND EVERYBODY. 329 

prolong life to thousands of the overtaxed literary men 
and women of America. 

" The third lesson is for everybody: The impor- 
tance of perpetual readiness for quick transit from 
world to world — a lesson we learn every day and for- 
get as soon as we learn it. The most powerful sermon 
Mr. Beecher ever preached he is preaching to-day 
from the text : ' Be ye also ready, for in such a day 
and in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man 
cometh.' So often, as in Mr. Beecher 1 s case, the last 
sickness is a time of unconsciousness. It behooves us 
while in health and strength to get ready for the next 
world, which may at any moment swing around and 
strike us out of this existence. ' Except a man be born 
again he can not see the kingdom of God.' By re- 
pentance of sin and faith in Christ all go safely. 
Would to God that the suddenness of this stroke might 
result in the immediate preparation of millions of 
souls for the eternal world upon which we must all 
soon be ushered. Do not wait until you see the flam- 
beau of the Bridegroom coming through the darkness 
before you begin to trim your lamps. You may wait for 
your last moment, but when your last moment comes it 
will not wait for you. And now, farewell, illustrious 
brother departed. Carry him gently out along the 
streets with which he has so long been familiar. For 
the first time he passes without smile or cheerful 



330 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

recognition. Take him out to the silent city where 
sleep so many to whom he once ministered. They 
will not greet him now, but on resurrection morn will 
rise near him. Toll long and loud the bell at the 
gate. Put him to rest under the early crocus of the 
spring, for he loved flowers; his right hand closed, 
for there are no more genial words for him to write; 
his lips shut, for there are no more encouraging 
words for him to speak; his brow cool, for his head 
has stopped aching now; his heart quiet, for it will 
never break again. I would put upon his grave not 
a single wreath, not a single blossom; but I would 
put upon his casket and his grave a scroll plain and 
white, a scroll half open that you may read it from 
both sides : ' I am the resurrection and the life ; he 
that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall 
he live.' 

" 'On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand, 
All other ground is shifting sand.' 

All the day the long line of people passing through 
Plymouth church to view the remains continued to in- 
crease, and the rush was so great to gain admission, that 
it was found necessary to increase the force of officers 
around the church-door. The throng was made up of 
almost all nationalities. As the day advanced the line 
of people extended until it reached Fulton street, then 
down one side of the next block and up the other, 




331 



MINISTERS, TOILERS AND EVERYBODY. 333 

with a wing across Henry street. It was estimated 
that nearly 20,000 people passed before the catafalque 
during the day. 

There were so many wreaths and bouquets left on 
the bier that a special place had to be made near the 
platform at the foot of the pulpit to receive them. 

The church until 11 o'clock was more crowded 
than during the afternoon. The line of people wait- 
ing to view the remains extended from the church to 
Fulton street, nearly three blocks, and one block down 
Fulton. 

The will of Mr. Beecher was read that afternoon in 
the presence of the family. It read as follows: 

In the Name of God, Amen: — 

I, HBnry Ward Beecher, of the city of Brooklyn 
and State of New York, hereby revoking all other 
and former wills by me heretofore made, do make, 
publish and declare this to be my last will and tes- 
tament. 

1. I hereby authorize and direct my executors, or 
such of them as shall qualify, upon my death to col- 
lect and receive the amount of my life insurance, to 
invest the same and to pay the proceeds of such 
investment to my wife during her life in equal quar- 
terly yearly payments. 

2. I hereby give, bequeath and devise unto my 
executors, or such of them as shall qualify, the rest, 
residue and remainder of my estate, both real and per- 
sonal, in trust, for the benefit of my children. 



334 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WAED BEECHER. 

And I hereby direct that my said executors dis- 
tribute and apportion my said estate among my said 
children and in such manner or form and at such 
time or times as shall in their judgment be for the 
best interest of my said children, giving unto my exec- 
utors full power to sell and mortgage such and so 
much of my real and personal property as they, shall 
deem best and to invest or distribute the proceeds of 
such sale or sales as herein provided. 

3. It is my will that if any of my said children 
should die before the complete distribution of my 
estate, as above provided, leaving issue them surviv- 
ing, that such issue shall stand and take in the place 
and stead of their parent, taking per stirpes and per 
capita. 

4. I hereby nominate, constitute and appoint my 
sons, Henry B. Beecher, William C. Beecher and Her- 
bert F. Beecher, all of Brooklyn, N. Y., and my son- 
in-law, the Kev. Samuel Scoville, of Norwich, New 
York, the executors and trustees of this my will, and 
it is my will that no bonds shall be required of them, 
or either of them. 

Henry Ward Beecher [l. s.J 

July 11, 1878. 

Signed, sealed and declared by the said testator to 
be his last will and testament, in the presence of us, 
who, at his request and in his presence, and in the 
presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our 
names as witnesses. 

Henry Ward Beecher left some things the mere 
glimpse of which would make people's eyes sparkle. 



MINISTERS, TOILERS AND EVERYBODY. 33S 

He had about a pint of precious stones of many kinds, 
though neither he nor Mrs. Beecher ever wore any of 
them, and few were set into jewelry. Beecher also 
had a rare collection of silken scarfs. They came from 
Eastern countries, principally, and were gifts, in most 
instances, from friends who knew of his singular fad, 
and who picked them up while traveling in the Orient. 
The great preacher had many feminine tastes and fan- 
cies, and was notably urbane and polite in his treat- 
ment of women. Few pastors have ever commanded a 
nicer balance between dignity and urbanity in social 
intercourse with the adulatory sisters of their congre- 
gations. One of the last occasions of especial lioniz- 
ing of Plymouth's pet was a charity fair. Beecher 
was there every evening, as in duty bound, and his 
adroit courtesy in receiving homage, repelling sickish 
demonstrations of admiration, and getting through the 
ordeal in comfort to himself and the spectators was 
worth a study. 

Estimates of Mr. Beecher 1 s earnings during his 
lifetime place them at $1,000,000, of which $500,000 
was as pastor, $300,000 as a lecturer, and $200,000 as 
an author. One of his leading parishioners estimated 
his estate at $100,000 — his farm at Peekskill, worth 
$50,000, an insurance of $25,000 on his life, and his 
house in Brooklyn. 

That night the Beecher residence was brilliantly 



336 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

lighted, and everything around the house was made as 
bright as possible. Mrs. Beecher had been in her 
late husband's room a great portion of the afternoon 
looking over his papers. It seemed a delight to her 
to be near where her husband spent much of his time. 
The members of the family were dressed in bright 
clothing as though going to church Sunday, and ev- 
erything around was made as bright and cheerful as 
possible, in accordance with the often expressed wish 
of Mr. Beecher in case of his death. 

" I would not have a semblance of mourning about 
my grave," Mr. Beecher had said in one of his most 
eloquent sermons. 

"Death is coronation." 

" Life and death are equal kings, and death, even 
at its worst, is but perfect rest." 

And so, while the hearts of those nearest and dear- 
est to him were overwhelmed with grief, they endeav- 
ored to feel as he would have had them feel, and all 
the outward and visible trappings of woe customary 
when death visits a household were carefully avoided, 
in deference to Mr. Beecher's wish. 

Hundreds of people called during the day and left 
cards. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

PUBLIC OPINION. 

On Sabbath, it is estimated that 10,000 people 
made a pilgrimage to the vault in Greenwood where 
lay the remains of Mr. Beecher. The concourse of 
persons that came to pay their tribute of respect was 
composed of the plain people with whom the dead 
preacher's name was a household world. Their occu- 
pations had denied them the opportunity to be present 
at the formal obsequies during the past week. From 
early morning until sunset a wide stream of people 
passed through the massive cemetery gates and with 
unobtrusive and respectful mien gathered about the 
vault. Old white-haired men and women and toddling 
children were there. Hats were raised from heads 
and many an eye was moist with loving recollection. 
The tribute of flowers twined about the gates had 
begun to droop. 

Mr. Beecher is quoted as once having said: " Oh, 

may the sun pierce through t^ trees, dear to many 

birds, to fall in checkered light upon my grave! I ask 

no stone or word of inscription. May flowers be the 

22 337 



338 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

only memorials on my grave, renewed every spring 
and maintained through the long summer." 

In nearly all the churches in New York and Brook- 
lyn the clergymen made some reference to the death 
of Mr. Beecher. In the Church of the Divine Pater- 
nity, where, six years ago, Mr. Beecher preached the 
funeral sermon over the remains of Rev. Dr. Chaj)in, 
the Bev. Charles H. Eaton spoke at some length upon 
Mr. Beecher and his work. " The two mighty friends 
of truth, Beecher and Chapin," he said, " walk to- 
gether in glory. In the days that are gone Henry 
Ward Beecher was so associated with the nation that 
we all feel the sense of personal loss." The Bev. J. 
S. Wheedon, of the Thirty-seventh Street Methodist 
Episcopal Church, in speaking of the dead pastor, 
said: " When on his trial — and it may appear out of 
place to speak on such a subject — I did not know 
what to think of him until I heard him say, in reply 
to the question, ' Are you guilty ? ' 'By my mother's 
God, no.' Then I knew that he was innocent." 

Said another clergyman: " Mr. Beecher lived a 
friend of the poor, a friend of the slave and a friend 
to his country in its darkest days, and when his days 
of trouble came there were thousands who did not ask 
if he were right or wrong, but flocked to his side and 
gave him the support he needed." 

Still another: " No one man since Washington did 



PUBLIC OPINION. 339 

more to develop and enrich the history of this country 
than he did. We are all his debtors." 

Babbi Mendies, in his opinion of Mr. Beecher, 
praised him very highly. " Mr. Beecher," he said, 
"was a central figure in the history of this country, 
and it will be some time before the place that he has 
left vacant will be filled." 

Another said: "Henry Ward Beecher I never 
knew, but from what I have read, heard and seen of 
him, I certainly consider him to have been a remark- 
able man — the most remarkable, in fact, of his age. 
His position in public affairs was a prominent one. 
As a theologian I could not and did not admire him, 
but as a man I certainly did. In late years I was not 
in sympathy with him on account of his teachings. 
Our spheres were widely apart and we did not have 
anything in common. I always looked upon him as a 
great man intellectually, and he doubtless used his in- 
tellect for good." 

Again: "I look upon Henry Ward Beecher as 
having the biggest heart and the biggest brain that 
this generation has seen. Beecher I never considered 
a theologian, and I never could agree with his 
vagaries. His mind was an intuitive one — more like 
that of a seer or a poet. He arrived at his conclu- 
sions like a woman — by perception, and not by logical 
deduction. When he went into an exposition of 



34:0 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

theology lie was like a bull in a china-shop. His de- 
sign was to do right. His nlind was many-sided, but 
in practical religion he was without a peer. The 
heart makes the truly great preacher, and his heart 
was an emotional one. He broadened men's views of 
religious truths and freed them from old shackles. 
Still, he was not a safe leader, as he kept so far in ad- 
vance that his people lost sight of him. His in- 
fluence, nevertheless, has been beneficent, and I look 
upon the gap his death has made as a very great 

0116." 

Still another said: "I can give no better estimate 
of Henry Ward Beecher than by saying he suited me 
in all respects. Some years ago I was requested to 
write a chapter of his biography, I refused to do so, 
as I did not consider myself equal to the task. His 
work in the religious life of this country was very 
great. What Tasso said of his instructor may be said 
of Mr. Beecher, he was like a whetstone, for all that 
came in contact with it were able to put a fine edge to 
their tools. We are all brighter from contact with 
pure souls, and so we were when brought in contact 
with Beecher. To my mind he was the greatest 
preacher on this planet, and had been since he arrived 
at the fullness of his life. His thought will not die 
with him, though it may become absorbed in other 
minds, but never in books. His mind was like fine 



PUBLIC OPINION. 341 

wheat sown to spring in new harvests. His living 
spirit can not die. Men will be his debtors for ages 
to come, as he did so much in these plastic times, 
when all things are so fluent. One great thing in his 
character was that, with all the advance he made as a 
pioneer of new truth and new life, he never lost sight 
of the settlement in which his brethren lived. Then 
he had such an inexhaustible fund of things to say, 
illustrations pouring out of his mind as rivers pour 
their tides down to the ocean, and never running dry. 
A great many sermons are like a glass of Missouri 
water. You must let it stand and settle before you 
can drink; very often you will have to throw half 
away. But his sermons were translucent, fresh and 
pure as spring water." 

" Our parishes were widely apart, and therefore I 
never had an opportunity of knowing or speaking with 
him. But I learned to know him from afar, and I 
considered him a most extraordinary man, a peerless 
man, a man of great, powerful intellectual force. He 
was a Titan among men. His treatment of Scriptural 
and doctrinal subjects was very free, though some ex- 
pressions he made within recent years had the effect 
of clearing him of the charge of heresy. The in- 
fluence he exerted during his life will be wholesome 
to mankind long after his death." 

Eev. Eoderick Terry, pastor of the South Dutch 



342 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Reformed Church, said: "In theology we did not 
agree, but in spite of that I could not fail to admire 
the greatness of his heart and character. Henry 
Ward Beecher came at a needy time in the history of 
our country — the period of slavery. Few could com- 
pare with him, and to know him was to admire him 
for his heart and sympathy and his great intellect. I 
do not think that his death will influence religious 
thought much. People are coming more and more 
together, and that union will not be influenced very 
much by his death." 

In Elmira, the church of Mr. Beecher's brother, 
the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, was crowded by people 
of all denominations, anxious to hear his narrative of 
the boyhood and later life of Henry Ward Beecher. 
It was not a sermon, but a familiar talk as to friends 
upon a subject very dear to his heart. He lifted the 
veil from a picture of family life as beautiful as it 
was instructive. " You that are here assembled," he 
said, " probably know more of Henry Ward Beecher 
than I do, but I know more of ' Brother Henry ' than 
you do." The sketch was from the standpoint of a 
younger brother. Henry and Charles were to Thomas 
the heroes of the family. He touched upon the boy- 
hood at home, the departure for college, the course in 
theology and the associations of the two as brothers 
until thirty-four years ago, when Thomas came to 



PUBLIC OPINION. 348 

Elmira, and established the church of which he is now 
the head. The congregation were several times moved 
to tears by the touching incidents recalled. 

In the house of Thomas A. Edison, at Llewellyn 
Park, is a remarkable memento of Beecher. The 
inventor's phonograph for impressing on a soft metal 
sheet the utterances of the human voice, and then 
emitting it again by the turning of a crank, has never 
been put to any very valuable use, and Edison has 
only gained from it a few thousand dollars in royalties 
from exhibitors. But he utilized it to make a collec- 
tion of famous voices. Since he became famous his 
visitors have included hundreds of celebrities. Instead 
of asking them for their autographs or photographs, 
he has, in two or three hundred instances requested 
them to speak a few sentences into a phonograph. He 
has, kept the plates in a cabinet, and occasionally he 
runs some of them through the machine, which sends 
out the words exactly as uttered. Edison is probably 
the only man who can revive the silenced voice of the 
great preacher. 

To Mr. Beecher books were only a means to an 
end; he did not stop at them, as some men do at the 
cobwebs on the window, and so men called him unbe- 
lieving. There was not a phenomenon of nature that 
he did not study, in the hope of finding a trace of 
God in it, and he has left that faith to you as a legacy. 



344 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WAED BEECHER. 

He flung his doors wide open to every form of serious 
thinking. He has been called a mystic. He was not 
a mystic, for he never hesitated to put his witnesses 
of thought on the stand and submit them to every 
questioning. He had no fear of what any philosophy 
could say of him. He could not think that God was 
a dead God, in a sealed and musty book, but looked 
upon Him as a living and loving being. To him 
Christ was God, not a messenger from God. 

The press and the pulpit have vied with each other 
in expressions of praise and honor. 

From the many eulogies in the editorial columns of 
the religious press the following have been selected as 
representing many different denominations: 

Christian Leader (Universalist) : Beecher will live 
in history as one of the oratorical wonders of the cent- 
ury. No other man has had such magnetic power, on 
the platform and in the pulpit. No other man has in 
the same length of time done so much to make over 
and make almost new the theology he inherited. No 
other man has so dared to confront the prepossessions 
and prejudices of his co-laborers, or has had a tithe of 
his power in compelling a new generation to accept his 
lead. The saddest chapter in his history is the most 
remarkable of all. What other man could have stood 
so firm with such an awful weight resting upon him? 
What other man could have passed through the fear- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 347 

ful ordeal and have held intact so large a proportion 
of the prestige put in peril? Single-handed, save in 
the important regard that he has had a vast and en- 
thusiastic following, Beecher has been to his age a 
fourth estate. In some regards he has not wrought 
wisely and consistently, but in the judicial average he 
must be set down as a reformer to whom the age is 
profoundly indebted. 

Christian Intelligencer (Reformed) : A great man 
has fallen — a man great in intellect, great in heart, 
great in personality, great in influence — fallen as he 
desired, in the midst of his work and suddenly. All 
his lecture engagements were cancelled for two years 
to enable him to devote his time to the completion of 
" The Life of Christ" and to writing his autobiography. 
Truly he was cut off in the midst of his purposes. 

The Christian at Work (Congregational): His 
people, afflicted by his loss, will cherish his memory, 
and his name will survive in history and will be a 
household word on the lips of many of the present 
generation for years to come. His bereaved congre- 
gation will have a hard task before them to supply 
that pulpit; the vacancy they will not expect to fill. 

Christian Advocate (Methodist) : The name of 
Henry Ward Beecher is more widely known than that 
of any other minister which the American continent 
has produced. His personality has been more vividly 



348 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

suggested by his name than that of most public men, 
whether in church or state. Accordingly, the impres- 
sion caused" by the stroke to which he has succumbed 
is profound. 

Brooklyn Examiner (Catholic) : He was an in- 
tense lover of his country and of humanity. When- 
ever danger from any source threatened the great Re- 
public, his voice always sounded with clarion clearness 
and wonderful eloquence. Human misery, wherever 
seen or heard of, ever appealed to his practical help. 
He was not a churchman; he was a humanitarian. He 
was an apologist for human weakness and sinfulness, 
and would advocate the cause of humanity against 
revelation itself. He was a free lance in religious 
matters, who could not be held by the restraints of 
doctrines. The virtues he practiced emanated rather 
from natural than supernatural motives. While almost 
without location in the religious world, yet he pos- 
sessed many of those qualities that go to make great- 
ness in a secular sense. Brooklyn will place his mem- 
ory in a niche of distinction, and many a year will roll 
around ere his name shall be forgotten. 

Hebrew Standard: Whenever great questions or 
principles awaited the decision of the people the voice 
of Henry Ward Beecher was heard pleading for jus- 
tice, right and humanity, and the people looked up to 
him as a safe and trusted counsellor. His was an 



public oriNiON. 349 

originality of conception unsurpassed by any other 
living mind, and in the presentation of public ques- 
tions he had no peer. As a theologian he had the 
courage of his conviction, and he always dared to 
match his own liberal views against the preconceived 
and traditional creed of the Church. He combined 
sincerity in the faith of which he was an exponent 
with the broad liberality and tolerance which recog- 
nizes the equality and justice of other creeds, proceed- 
ing from the consciousness that absolute truth is 
withheld from mortal man. As an orator he occupied 
the highest rank; he held his audience captive with 
magic spell; they hung upon his lips as upon the 
oracle of wisdom and truth. Many of his utterances 
will live in the future as "winged words." 

Boston Pilot (Catholic) : The death of Henry 
Ward Beecher leaves a wide gap in the leading rank 
of eminent Americans. Mr. Beecher was notably a 
large figure, by his warm sympathies, his eloquence, 
his manliness, his patriotism. These were stronger 
than his clericalism. He was a great preacher, it is 
true; but he preached these very things — he preached 
Beecher. His theology was unstable and personal, 
and had more of sentiment than principle. His 
divine "Yes ,; was a coin with a human "No" on the 
back of it, and when he tossed it up before an assem- 
bly it seemed haphazard which side showed at the end 



350 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

of the speech. It was so also with his patriotism and 
his politics. A lesser man might have been a 
stronger, but the deep human kindness of his nature 
rolled over difficulties and dangers and won for him 
love and respect. He will be profoundly mourned by 
the American people. 

Baptist Weekly: Never has the removal of a min- 
ister of the Gospel produced a wider and deeper im- 
pression on the public mind. Endowed with un- 
rivalled powers, his public utterances on all the great 
questions of the day commanded more attention than 
any other living man; and at a period of life when 
other men are forced to remit their labors and retire 
from the toils and conflicts of the world he was girded 
with strength and fired with an energy equal to any- 
thing that he had shown in the meridian of his years. 
In the removal of such a man all Christendom mourns 
the loss of a great leader, a man endowed with a mind 
second to no living mortal, and who, while leaving his 
impress on living generations, has projected his mar- 
vellous influence for charity and righteousness into 
coming centuries. 

Jewish Messenger: The loss of Mr. Beecher is. 
national. He was the sturdiest of our pulpit orators, 
and ever the most popular on any platform. As in 
early life he braved success among his own circle by 
talking and working against slavery with all the pow- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 351 

ers at his command, and won enthusiastic attention by 
the courage with which he defended opinions that 
were unpopular, so his later years were devoted to ex- 
posing evils in the party at whose birth he had 
assisted, and his independent bearing in the last gen- 
eral election, while it provoked much criticism, was in 
keeping with the frankness of his whole public career. 
He was a manly preacher, ardent in his love for his 
form of Christianity, but respecting his neighbor's 
creed, and earnestly looking for good in all phases of 
religion. His place can not be filled in his church 
and in the community. That is the verdict of all who 
knew him. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 



Judge Tourgee, in writing of Mr. Beecher, says: 
There is no more grateful duty than the acknowledge- 
ment of obligations to the dead. The great Plymouth 
pastor is already embalmed in eulogy. Thousands of 
pulpits have given utterance to critical exposi- 
tions of his merits. All will find much to applaud in 
the remarkable life that is just ended; some will be 
constrained to utter words of blame, while in many 
voices will lurk some tone of apology. It is a curi- 
ously mixed tribute that will be offered to this man 
of singular genius, this restless worker, this bold 
almost defiant nature, with its wonderful tints of sun- 
shine and softness, its tenderness, cheerfulness and 
unfailing love of the beautiful. 

It seems to me that the tendency at present is to 
consider him too much in the light of a religious 
teacher, rather than as an intellectual force. It is no 
doubt true that he was the most distinguished pulpit 
orator the world has ever seen. For forty years he 
ministered to the most notable congregation that ever 
gathered to listen to a Christian preacher, and in all 
that time probably saw fewer vacant seats before him 
than ever met the eye of any other occupant of a 
pulpit. Old and young, stranger and familiar, friend 
352 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 353 

and foe, learned and unlearned, high and low, all felt 
alike the charm of his wonderful personality. His 
words seemed to have the pentecostal power of uni- 
versal comprehensibility. It might mean one thing 
to one heart and something different to another, but 
it was meaningless to none. Everybody understood 
and everybody felt the charm. To one his words 
brought smiles and to another tears. One blamed, 
perhaps, and another commended, but no one was' 
apathetic. To measure his power is quite impossible 
because of its unique character. 

Perhaps less than any other religious thinker did 
his influence depend on what he taught. Indeed, 
hardly two of his habitual listeners could be found 
agreeing as to what his teachings were, yet there was 
no conflict between them. Whether he were right or 
wrong, whether he taught one doctrine or inclined to 
another, mattered little. 

He touched somewhere the thought, feeling, aspir- 
ation of every one who listened — so that the mere 
delight of listening rendered secondary all other con- 
siderations. His speech Avas a sort of intellectual 
hasheesh which expanded and exhilarated every na- 
ture. The dullest listener dreamed wonderful dreams 
while under the intoxicating influence of his words. 
The bitterest enemy forgot his hate and followed with 
delight the footsteps of his fancy. 

He had in a perfection, unrivalled by any man of 

his time, the faculty of obliterating himself to his 

hearers. What seemed ofttimes most striking and 

characteristic to his readers, to those who listened 

23 



354 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

seemed most natural and matter of course. Men 
applauded what they heard and questioned what they 
read. He charmed and startled with his pen, and 
charmed and captivated with his tongue. He followed 
his own thought with such apparent pleasure that his 
hearers unconsciously engaged in a like pursuit. 
They forgot the man in watching the operation of his 
mind. The listener seemed to have the power of fore- 
casting his utterances, which, if they startled by their 
boldness, seemed always to be the only thing he could 
naturally and reasonably have said. Thus those who 
heard became in a singular degree partners in what was 
uttered. Each felt it to have been his own thought. 
He gave him credit for clothing it in new and attrac- 
tive garb, but each one claimed the thought himself as 
a familiar child of his own consciousness. So men 
followed where he led them with a supreme delight, 
never anxious as to the end or apprehensive as to the 
correctness of his conclusions, but knowing that he led 
in the direction which their hearts and hopes pointed 
— along a way their feet delighted to pursue. 

With the utmost positiveness, he had the least pos- 
sible dogmatism. He cared little for method, but had 
the utmost confidence in good intentions. In a relig- 
ious sense he was a gardener who did not believe in 
pinching and pruning — or, rather, they were methods 
it never occurred to him to use. Air and sunshine, a 
fresh soil, stimulating influence, and a free growth 
were the instrumentalities he relied on for good 
effects. Frames and borders, conventional forms and 
an enforced symmetry were as irksome to his mind as 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 355 

his eye. He sought to trample out the weeds, clear 
away the overshadowing branches, and let each soul 
grow in its own way. He did not seek to make the 
vine an oak, nor compel the oak to put forth tendrils. 
Each heart was to give him a flower to which he 
sought not to give uniformity of growth and hue, but 
to enable each to seek its own peculiar development — 
its especial characteristic excellence. 

Because of this his influence is especially difficult 
to trace. Even those whose lives he has done very 
much to shape are often unconscious of specific influ- 
ence. He seldom gave advice, and when he did its 
quality was not remarkable. With all his wonderful 
fertility of mind he was not given to suggesting new 
fields of action or methods of operation to others, but 
he had a wonderful faculty of judging the suggestions 
of others. 

Said one who had rare opportunity ro observe him 
in this respect : " If a man goes to him and asks, 
' What shall I do ? ' I would not give a fig for his an- 
swer. If he lays before him three courses and asks 
which he shall pursue, his instinct is unerring." It is 
not as a religious teacher, nor even as a religious 
trainer, therefore, that he was greatest or most dis- 
tinctively great, but as an intellectual impulse — a 
psychic influence. He was not so much a guide or a 
leader as a stimulator of mental activity and moral 
sensibility. 

It is for this reason that his influence was harmful 
to some natures and weakening to others. Some peo- 
ple need to be led, others to be restrained. He could 



356 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

do neither. He encouraged — nay, he compelled, 
growth, expansion, enlargement. He thought it bet- 
ter to be deformed than .dwarfed. Some natures he 
stimulated until efflorescence brought decay. Others 
ran riot under his influence and produced an abundant 
but imperfectly developed fruitage. Still others were 
weakened by premature luxuriance, while others, like 
clinging vines, were distraught by vain searching for 
something to which their tendrils might cling. 

For myself, and I am sure my experience is not 
exceptional, while I found his occasional touch most 
helpful and inspiring, constant or continuous follow- 
ing of his thought, while it did not produce satiety 
yet became depressing and in a sense weakening. 
This is no doubt due to a mental habit that can not 
endure over stimulation. While a page now and then, 
a sermon once in awhile, brought always to my mind 
a most healthful glow indicative of renewed vigor, its 
frequent recurrence Aveakened and relapsed. For this 
reason I both sought and avoided him, and while re- 
garding him with the utmost admiration, it was per- 
haps not the unquestioning reverence with which those 
standing nearer to him were almost sure to be affected. 
Not that he seemed to me less admirable on near ap- 
proach, but I seemed always to desire rest after hav- 
ing my imagination fired by the strange luxuriance of 
his thought. He always started in my mind trains of 
speculation which I desired to pursue to the end, 
while his influence was constantly leading me off into 
some new path. I felt something like one hurried 
through the main .avenue of a park of wonderful 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 357 

beauty, with a constant desire, despite its ever varying 
brilliancy of scene, to stop and loiter in the bosky 
glades which stretch away half seen on either hand. 

Among the merits that will be universally accorded 
him there is one that seems to me pre-eminent. As 
an aesthetic force his influence has been singularly 
marked, universal, and intense. The generation to 
which he belonged had three high priests of the aes- 
thetic — three great apostles of the beautiful — Carlyle, 
Ruskin, and Beecher. The one was concerned wholly 
with moral loveliness in man. He was a terrible 
frothing iconoclast, who tore down and trampled in the 
dust all that did not seem to him fitting and noble in 
individual manhood. He raved and cursed and 
scourged, but he raved always of moral grandeur, 
intellectual strength, and the essential harmony of 
human attributes. For externals he cared nothing. 
To all that appealed to senses he was absolutely dead. 
He saw no beauty in form and was deaf to the har- 
mony of sweet sound. No woman's loveliness en- 
chained his eye nor any siren song delighted his ear. 
Apollo was to him only a type of senseless vanity; 
Venus only a flimsy cloak of vileness. The moral 
quality to him was everything. He did not see the 
toad, being blinded by the glitter of the jewel in its 
head. He scourged our natures to an appreciation of 
intellectual beauty, and a hatred of moral ugliness 
which the world never knew before. He was the great 
apostle of fitness and force — moral grandeur and 
intellectual uprightness. To him all beauty was 
human and the divine was only a grander humanity. 



358 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Alas! we did not know pitiably he illustrated his own 
ideals. 

Buskin's idea was the mystic unity of nature, art, 
and intellect. To him humanity was an harmonious 
compound of brain and sense. Nature was a mass of 
types of human passion, and art the reflection, combi- 
nation, and etherealization of both. To his mind 
nature existed only for art's sake, art only for man's 
enjoyment, and man only fflr the development of the 
artistic sense and the perfection of artistic types. As 
Carlyle might be termed an Anglo-Roman, Euskin 
might be fitly styled a nineteenth century Greek. 
Both hated shams and pretense — the one in thought, 
the other in expression — the one in substance, the 
other in form. Both were pagans. Neither saw any 
God in nature, nor any superhuman motive in man 
nor art. Both thought themselves moral teachersl 
because they hated moral ugliness. The one cared 
nothing for the outward expression ; the other believed 
it inspired by essential harmony. To the one moral 
obliquity hid all external harmony; to the other exter- 
nal loveliness was an essential concomitant of inward 
purity. While the one saw the jewel despite the toad ; 
the other could never believe in the jewel's existence 
because of the toad. Euskin was sweet, Carlyle fierce, 
and both all the more intolerant because each thought 
himself the especial apostle of a new and exclusive 
liberalism. They were both worshipers of the beau- 
tiful, but each in his own pragmatic and exclusive 
way. There was a certain harmony between them, 
jmd yet their teachings were mutually subversive. 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 361 

Whosoever would go all the way with Carlyle must 
some time part company with Buskin. Yet they were 
the greatest expounders of the beautiful the world had 
ever known. Merged into one they would constitute 
the perfect type of human ideality. Together they 
stamped ineffaceably upon the intellectual life of their 
generation the essential harmony between the ideal 
and the concrete — between nature and art — between 
essence and expression — between form and passion — 
between the beautiful and the true. 

To this was added a third idea, of which Mr. 
Beecher was almost unconsciously the chief exponent. 
Sympathizing alike with the moral grandeur of Car- 
lyle's ideal of humanity and the subtle sensuousness 
of Buskin's interpretation of nature, he exalted and 
glorified them both by introducing another element 
— a perfect solvent of their essential differences — 
the thought of God. Nature, humanity, and art he 
saw only in their relations to the divine. Like the 
others he hated shams above all things, but he be- 
lieved in the true and the real, because he saw God 
in everything and everything in its relation to God. 
With Carlyle he would tolerate the toad for the sake 
of the jewel, and like Buskin he was inclined to the 
existence of the jewel because of the toad, but un- 
like both he felt that toad and jewel were both di- 
vine and that somewhere and somehow there was 
discoverable between them an essential harmony. H6 
could not conceive of any toad without a jewel; of 
humanity unrelated to deity; of a nature that did not 
reveal the mind of a creator. He has been called a 



362 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Christian pantheist. Nothing could be wider of the 
truth. He did not worship nature, but saw in it 
the evidence of God. He did not worship God as a 
divine man, but looked upon man with a peculiar and 
universal reverence as the clearest exponent — the near- 
est analogy of the divine. This idea of the holiness 
and divinity of beauty, he impressed not only on our 
religious thought, but on our literature and even on 
our politics. The tender, exalted, and truthful relig- 
ious, patriotic, and artistic ideals of the generations 
which have listened to his teachings owe to him the 
fusing, intensifying, and enlargement of the thought 
of his great contemporaries. He was pre-eminently 
the Christian interpreter of nature. 

He has pointed out more of the pleasant by-ways 
"from nature up to nature's God" than any other 
man has ever noted. If Darwin saw in nature the evi- 
dence of an inflexible law of development operating 
through myriads of millions of years, Beecher saw in 
that law and in the all but illimitable period of exist- 
ence it required new evidence of the beauty and gran- 
deur, compassion and glory of the One Divine. He 
stamped upon the human consciousness as no one else 
had ever done before the divinity of beauty — the di- 
vinity of its origin and the divinity of its mission to 
humanity. As a Christian humanitarian he was not 
perhaps without his equals, but as a Christian lover 
and interpreter of nature he is without a peer. Of the 
pleasant facts of nature others have taught us even 
more than he; but of nature as an inspired oracle no 
one has given such wondrous expositions. He has 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 363 

traced better than any other the divine harmony be- 
tween God and nature and humanity — the unity that 
pervades, assimilates, and exacts. 

Notwithstanding the fact that every page he has 
written, every sermon he preached, and every lecture 
he delivered are living witnesses of the truth I have 
endeavored to elucidate, I may be pardoned for illus- 
trating it by an incident within my own knowledge. 

Something more than thirty years ago a homesick 
Western boy wandered about the Berkshire hills. 
Despite their picturesque beauty they seemed petty to 
one accustomed to the mighty forests and vast hori- 
zons of the West. It may seem a curious thing, but 
the very ruggedness and irregularity of the outlook 
oppressed him. He longed for the silence of the 
great woods; the sight of its familiar denizens; the 
blue lake in the distance, gilded by the sunshine or 
flecked with white-caps by the storm. In short, he 
was homesick — not for home, perhaps, but for the 
West — for his accustomed surroundings. Of course 
he did not know what ailed him. He had been accus- 
tomed to the woods and a gun almost from infancy, 
and with a gun he sought the dwarfed and scraggy 
thickets upon the mountain side as a cure for the nos- 
talgia he did not understand. Though he could 
traverse miles of level woodland with an instinct as 
unerring as a homing pigeon, he was easily lost 
among the hills through which the Housatonic flows 
in and out with puzzling uncertainty. 

One autumn day, when the blue haze hung over the 
hills; when the maples flamed out against the hem- 



364 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

locks here and there in gaudy rivalry; when the 
beeches were growing brown; the birches beginning 
to show their white limbs and the willows a yellow 
fringe between the green aftermath of the meadows 
and the dark blue of the waters, he had strayed be- 
yond the limit of his knowledge. 

Perched upon the outermost point of a cliff that 
marks the face of one of the most noted peaks that 
overlook the valley, he sought anxiously but vainly 
for some familiar landmark. Whether it was Lee or 
Lennox, Stockbridge or Great Barrington that lay at 
his feet he could not determine. Of course every- 
thing that ought to have been familiar was absolutely 
unrecognizable. He was utterly lost. The only way 
out of his predicament was to go to some of the 
houses in sight in the valley, inquire his way home, 
and sneak back ignobly and shamefacedly along the 
highway. 

As he was about to take this course he heard some 
one clambering along the rough pathway at the foot 
of the ledge, nigh a hundred feet below him. 
Screened by the thick laurels he watched the new- 
comer's advance, himself undiscovered. He knew Mr. 
Beecher by sight, and knew where the country house, 
which was then his haven of rest, was situated. He 
recognized at a glance the flushed face and stalwart 
figure, then in the prime of manly strength. His 
brow was covered with perspiration, for besides the 
rough walk he had taken, he was burdened with an 
armful of trophies he had gathered on the way. Just 
at the point of the cliff a clear spring bubbled out 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 305 

from under a gray, mossy rock. He threw his varie- 
gated armful down, tossed off his soft hat, and, lying 
prone upon the ground, quenched his thirst. Then 
he stood up, threw back his long hair, wiped his brow, 
gazed at the prospect that lay outspread at his feet, 
sat down upon a spur of the rock, and picked up one 
by one the leaves and flowers he had gathered. Then 
he sat for a long time, silent and unmoving, looking 
down into the quiet valley and off at the hazy hills 
beyond. The boy had overcome his shyness, and was 
about to descend and inquire his way homeward when 
he heard the soft, full tones which stole with such in- 
sensible power into every ear. Looking down he saw 
his companion in the luminous solitude kneeling in 
the midst of the painted leaves he had scattered on 
the dun rock, the bright autumn sunshine lighting up 
the warm, brown hair and touching with unwonted 
radiance the soft lines of his placid face as he prayed 

— alone — upon the mountain, with no thought that 
any one but God could hear. 

The boy listened in amazement. He had been 
accustomed to prayer. The family altar was an almost 
universal institution then. Prayer as an act of duty; 
prayer as a religious rite ; prayer as a religious service 

— all these were familiar things to his consciousness. 
He even had his own ideas about prayer, and when 
he felt that he had been exceptionally bad or had a 
desire to be exceptionally good, he had sometimes tried 
praying on his own account over and above his share 
in the evening and morning devotions. He regarded 
it as a pretty serious business, however, a thing that 



366 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

needed to be done and ought by no means to be neg- 
lected, and which, if persevered in, brought at length 
a sort of fervid rapture which carried the worshiper 
into a mystic realm of supernatural bliss. But such 
a prayer as this he had never heard before — ■ indeed, 
he has never heard such another since. A calm, ten- 
der, quivering rhapsody of thankfulness that God 
had made the earth so beautiful. A burst of gratitude 
for mountain and valley, river and spring, rock and 
brake, sunshine and shadow, tinted leaf and whirring 
pheasant — everything that had gladdened the eye or 
charmed the sense during the autumnal stroll. 

I have no idea how long he prayed. For the first 
time I thought a prayer too short. I wished he 
might have kept on forever. I had some curious 
fancies during its continuance. Perhaps, as I looked 
at his glowing face and saw his dewy, luminous 
eyes as it concluded, I may be pardoned if I thought 
of the Mount of Transfiguration. I trust there was 
no sacrilege in it. After a while I stole down and 
timidly asked my way home. I felt ashamed of hav- 
ing been an eavesdropper on his devotions. He evi- 
dently noted it, and to put me at my ease asked me if 
I did not think it was " a pretty cradle God had made 
for His children." He walked nearly a mile with me 
away from his house, which must have been three or 
four miles from our starting point, to make sure that 
I did not lose my way. I do not remember anything 
he said, but I walked all the way home in a sort of 
delicious dream, full of strange, vague aspirations and 
sweet, tender recollections. Somehow, I came to see 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 367 

more in nature afterward than I liaa ever done before, 
and I have never ceased to be grateful that I heard 
this prayer in the mountain oratory. My relations 
with him were not close enough to justify recalling 
the incident to his memory, and I suppose he died 
quite unconscious of the identity of the uncouth lad 
whom he that day initiated not so much into nature's 
mysteries, for I was no mean woodman even then, but 
into their mystical relation to God, the giver, and man 
the happy recipient. It is probable he had long since 
forgotten tfee trivial incident, but for this sweet lesson, 
in common with many thousands, I still remain his 
grateful debtor. Albion W. Tourgee. 

Judge Tourgee, after bringing all his splendid 
powers to a discriminating analysis and a picturesque 
characterization of Mr. Beecher, turns with reverent 
tenderness to speak of his kindness to and his in- 
fluence upon a boy. The Rev. Dr. Hall, after dwell- 
ing with rare and touching eloquence upon Mr. 
Beecher's personality and power, turns with the same 
tenderness to speak of Mr. Beecher's kindness to the 
children of the street. Nearly every one who has 
criticised Mr. Beecher, or who begins an address, or a 
letter, or a sermon upon his personality and character 
ends with a tender reference to his love of nature and 
of children. Many of the thousands who heard Mr. 
Beecher preach in his own church were wont to say as 



368 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

they went away: " I don't agree with him, but I feel 
more kindly toward all men for having heard him." 

This element in Mr. Beecher's character, this sur- 
plusage of love for his fellow men, this quick sym- 
pathy for helpless or suffering humanity, this richness 
of heart supply, this emotional overflow that led 
him on one great occasion to kiss the Rev. Dr. Storrs 
on the cheek, this wonderful responsiveness to the 
longings of the average man and woman — all these 
things mast be counted at their full value in any esti- 
mate of Mr. Beecher's life and work. 

No man, at once so courageous and pugnacious, was 
ever so tender and considerate. There was no vindic- 
tiveness in his pugnacity and no timidity in his con- 
siderateness. In some way, without apparent effort 
on his part, he maintained the friendship of those who 
were classed as his opponents. Judge Neilson, before 
whom the great scandal case was tried, beginning with 
distrust of and hostility to Mr. Beecher, became his 
steadfast friend. Hating him as few men in the 
North were hated during the war, the South at the 
close of the war came to regard him with favor. Dis- 
liking him above most Republicans, the Democrats in 
the later years of his life came to speak of him with 
profound respect. Regarding him at first with a feeling 
akin to resentment, the old Abolitionists came in good 
time to give him their sympathy and to follow him 



LOST AMONG THE HILLS. 3G9 

with enthusiasm. Beginning their public acquaint- 
ance with him when he went to England in 18G4, with 
sneers and scoffs and hisses, the English people ended 
by respecting him and by following his advice. 

In the darkest hour of the anti-slavery movement, 
when the nation clamored for the blood of John Brown, 
and when all doors were closed against those who 
would defend or excuse the old man, Mr. Beecher 
threw wide the doors of Plymouth Church that Wen- 
dell Phillips might, as Fred Douglass said, "Throw 
the shining shield of his eloquence over the bleeding 
head of the grand old hero and martyr." When Fred 
Douglass was without friends and at the beginning of 
his public career, Mr. Beecher made it a point to call on 
him personally and help him with his sympathy and 
influence. When Anna Dickinson first asked a hear- 
ing of the public it was Mr. Beecher who held out the 
helping hand. 

When it cost a man almost his reputation to be an 
abolitionist Mr. Beecher was an abolitionist. When it 
was regarded with disfavor in the North to speak ex- 
cusingly of the South, Mr. Beecher was the friend of 
the South. When Republicans were least inclined to 
forgive luke-warmness or desertion in 1884, Mr. 
Beecher strode out of the Republican camp into the 
Democratic. When the theory of the evolutionists 
was most unpopular, Mr. Beecher flung a series of 
24 



3 jO ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

sermons on evolution in the face of the public. So it 
happened that nearly every individual, nearly every 
sect and class had something to forgive in Mr. Beecher, 
and more to be thankful for. He was so near to the 
people, he understood the people so well that he 
trusted them implicitly, and the public estimate was 
seen in the tender observance of his memory at Brook- 
lyn on Thursday and Friday. That was the turning, 
not of his own people, not of his own church alone, 
but of all the people who knew him in reverent ear- 
nestness to testify their appreciation of his worth and 
to acknowledge their own sense of loss. 

The people loved the man and they had never any 
need to ask why. Mr. Beecher' s love for mankind 
was not ostentatious, but it was sincere and the people 
knew it. It was like his love for diamonds. He 
prized them, not that he might wear them for show but 
for themselves. It is said that his love of precious 
stones and jewels was a passion, and that he owned 
many of the rarest, and yet he wore none at all, but 
carried several in his vest pocket wrapped up in soft 
paper. This love of diamonds, of flowers, of trees, of 
nature was but one phase of his love for all that God 
has made, and he directed always the eyes of his fel- 
low men "from nature up to nature's God." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

TEIBUTE FROM ENGLAND. 

Mr. Beecher is mourned most sincerely in Eng- 
land. Writes an English correspondent: " It seems 
but yesterday that Mr. Beecher was here, looking hale 
and active ; and while his friends throughout England 
had no reason to hope they would see him on this side 
again, they were hardly prepared to hear so soon of his 
death. All the papers of yesterday contained special 
telegrams from New York giving particulars of his 
attack of Friday morning, and sympathetic words 
were heard everywhere. There could be no more con- 
vincing evidence of the esteem in which Mr. Beecher 
is held by the English public than the universal inter- 
est taken in the news of his illness. If the President 
himself had been stricken down, the impression made 
would not be more widely extended or keenly felt. 
On every hand I hear the opinion expressed that he 
was not only the greatest preacher in America, but 
the greatest man there, the greatest thinker, the 
greatest writer ; that no one had done so much to give 
character and direction to both the religious and 
371 



372 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

political tendencies of his country during his time 
as he. 

" I went out to Hampstead this morning to see the 
Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker, who has been called the 
Beecher of England, and certainly has many points in 
common with him. He is the leading Nonconformist 
preacher of Great Britain, and he and Mr. Beecher 
have been warm personal friends ever since the latter 
made his celebrated speech at Manchester in October, 
1863. Dr. Parker lived at Manchester at that time, 
and was one of a party of prominent citizens on the 
platform. When Mr. and Mrs. Beecher arrived in 
London last summer Dr. Parker and his wife met 
them at Euston Station and drove them to their com- 
fortable home in Hampstead, where they remained six 
weeks, all members of one happy family. Dr. Parker 
is a broad-faced man of thick-set frame, and with a 
warm-hearted cordiality like that of Mr. Beecher him- 
self. He met me with a look of the deepest anxiety 
and suspense. He had the night before received a 
cablegram saying there was no reasonable prospect of 
Mr. Beecher' s recovery. ' I am only waiting for the 
end,' said he. ' I know it must come. I am com- 
pletely prostrated by this terrible news.' Dr. Parker 
held in his hand a manuscript which he had just 
brought up from his study. 'This,' he said, 'is a 

I am 




Lying in State in Plymouth Church. 



TEIBUTE FROM ENGLAND. 375 

trying in this to express something of my appreciation 
of that great and good man. Ah ! this is a blow in- 
deed to this household. Mr. Beecher lived with us 
all the time he was in England last summer. He 
came and went as one of us, and we loved him more 
every day — so simple, so childlike, so sympathetic, so 
full of the broadest and best sentiments, and indeed 
always cheerful. Supper over, he would sit at the 
table and talk with all the glee and ardor of a boy. I 
have heard him pass from some profound discussion 
of philosophy, religion and statesmanship to the story 
of a cat or dog. Well do I remember how he would 
laugh over something he told about a cat and a fire- 
cracker; the quick surprise and bewilderment of the 
cat as the fire-cracker burst close to its head. He 
said it reminded him of an old woman who suddenly 
remembered she had left her umbrella. When I would 
come home late in the afternoon, I would find him 
sitting on the doorstep just as he did no doubt when 
he was a boy. In fact, the boy in him never died. 
He had a perennial youth because he was nature's 
own child. He was not a man of masks and faces, 
subterfuges and secrets, but one whose life was lived 
before the whole world, and from whom the whole 
world would always be learning something. For he 
had in him a mine of thought and sympathy that em- 
braced everything and that was inexhaustible. When 



376 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

he falls it will not be the falling of a splendid column, 
a Cleopatra's Needle, or of anything made by hands; 
but it will be the falling of a tree with limbs and 
branches and leaves under which we have rested and 
played, and in which we have heard the music of the 
breezes and the songs of the birds. Mr. Lincoln was 
once asked who was the greatest man in America. He 
hesitated a moment and then answered: "Henry Ward 
Beecher." So he was, not only in Mr. Lincoln's time, 
but has continued to be for more than a quarter of a 
century since.' 

"I can not in the brief and imperfect form of an 
interview give all the eloquent and touching tribute 
paid to Mr. Beecher by Dr. Parker. More than once 
tears filled his eyes, and if the dying man had been 
in the adjoining room he could not have appeared 
more deeply concerned. ' You see we remember him 
here,' said he. ' You see a picture of him there in 
the corner. There is another on the easel in the sit- 
ting-room, and one in the hallway just as you come in 
at the door. Did any man ever have such a noble 
brow? If God were going to make a perfect face how 
could he improve it? I saw him coming down the 
stairway one morning just before he left. I was at the 
side and only had a glimpse of his side-face. His 
long white hair was streaming back, his eye was 
kindly and brilliant, and I felt as though I had a 



TRIBUTE FROM ENGLAND. 377 

vision of an angel. We did not agree fully in every- 
thing. At least, we did not always express ourselves 
exactly alike, but I said: " That man is the living 
exponent of religion; I like his religion, which is my 
religion." I shall never forget the moment he parted 
from us. Putting his arms about me, he simply said: 
" Old fellow, I love you! " When he reached Liver- 
pool he wrote me a characteristic letter, saying among 
other things that he sometimes forgot things when 
traveling, now that he was old, and that he had left his 
heart with us. That heart was big enough to take in 
us and all mankind besides.' 

" I asked Dr. Parker if Mr. Beecher had any 
thought of an immediate prospect of death when he 
left England. ' He often talked of death,' said he, 
' and always with perfect composure and serenity. He 
said he hoped to die while at work in the midst of the 
busy life he had lived. He hoped he would not have 
any prolonged suffering but go at once, and in this 
his wishes seem to have been met. He spoke one day 
of the hymn he wished to be sung at the last service 
over his body. It is one by Dr. Watt: 

" ' When I survey the wondrous Cross 
On which the Prince of Glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss 
And pour contempt on all my pride.' 

" With this I took my leave of Dr. Parker feeling 

that Mr. Beecher left at least one friend in England 



378 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

who has both the heart and mind to do adequate honor 
to his memory. As I passed out I saw the life-sized 
portrait of Mr. Beecher that hangs in the hall of Dr. 
Parker's house. It was a speaking likeness, and it 
was made the more impressive by having a silken 
United States flag flung over one corner of the frame." 
The following letter from England reached a New 
York lady shortly after the death: 

My Dear Mother: All things of an earth-earthy 
character, pursuant to a predetermined infinite decree, 
have to pass away. The great, as well as the small; 
the strong, as well as the weak; the majestic, as well 
as the frivolous ; the good, as well as the bad ; all come 
within the scope of one unyielding, prophetic law. 
The age in which it has been our lot to live has been 
upheld and sanctified by a swelling tide — superlative 
in degree, and incessant in action — of intellectual 
greatness and moral force, unparalleled in the annals 
of our race. The majestic preservers of our nation; 
the Spartan heroes in the field and in the Cabinet and 
in the legislative halls — those who were the leaders in 
the greatest drama known to history — have all bowed 
to the unalterable decree. On either side of the sea, 
the past quarter of a century has noted the remarkable 
swath cut by the scythe of death. It was during the 
Ides of March that the conspirators slew the " greatest 
Eoman of them all." It is during the Ides of March 
that conspiracy of disease will accomplish the greatest 
havoc in intellectual power that has been known to 



TRIBUTE FROM ENGLAND. 379 

this century. A prodigy is about to fall! The great- 
est of the Beechers, the foremost American, the 
most advanced religious teacher and gospel ex- 
pounder, either living or dead, is, if reports be true, 
about to "fold the drapery of his couch about him, 
and lie down to pleasant dreams." It may be true, 
and, in my opinion, probably is true, that not enough 
is said when we state that the greatest intellectual 
product, taken all in all, that this age has known in 
America is about to die. I am constrained to believe 
that the most versatile genius, the most apt and qual- 
ified man, in all the departments of life, with lofti- 
ness of purpose, with a capacity in any direction, 
possessing a lion's courage and a lamb's tenderness; 
having more marked, before unfound, and, after his 
day, unknown great qualities than are or have been 
possessed by any human being in either hemisphere 
during the time in which he lived, to do lis honor by 
his work, and lead us by his example, and teach us by 
his thought. In the minutiae of life neither a phil- 
osopher nor a logician, yet, abstractedly, great in 
either school. The mathematical problems of this 
world, worked out to a last result, cramp men's minds, 
and make them lose in scope and power. He belonged 
to no school of ethics, metaphysics, politics or religion. 
He was the leader of schools. He rose above them as 
the tide rises above the common level of the sea. 
More like the Pacific than the Atlantic, storm tossed 
at times, as tempestuous as the Western ocean when 
not at peace, and yet, like that ocean, most always at 
peace. The rule was a quiet, even, placid way. The 



380 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

exceptions brought out the stronger character, and 
deeply impressed the rugged make-up of the man. A 
leader at his Avill upon the political platform ; a master 
of creeds and ceremonies ; a scholar with a rare gift of 
poetical genius when holding the novelist's pen, he 
could, in the midst of his fancy and flight, map out a 
campaign, fight a battle, draft articles of peace, and 
equal, if not superior, to any American, practically de- 
termine the results of war. Engaged in writing " The 
Life of Christ," a pause could be made at any time to 
perform a marriage ceremony, deliver a. funeral ora- 
tion, write a squelching letter to a political foe on a 
political subject, mount the platform and clasp hands 
with the greatest atheist of the age, lead the vast mul- 
titude of Plymouth Church on to a better and higher 
life, indulge in any fancy of speculate with any fact, 
and do it all, or any portion of it, better than any con- 
temporary. 

He was Gladstone's friend, because Gladstone was 
a friend to the poor and the oppressed. He mourned 
oppression and despised the oppressor. He obeyed 
the promptings of a great and good heart, and fol- 
lowed sublimely the leadership of a massive brain and 
a glowing nature. He was good; he could not have 
been otherwise but by accident; then the act would 
have been but sporadic, as accidents constitute the 
exception, not the rule of life. 

Henry Ward Beecher has performed more practical 
brain work than any man living; he underwent a most 
exasperating and undermining ordeal ; with an even 
poise and a masterly bearing, he withstood assaults 



TRIBUTE FROM ENGLAND. 381 

that none but he could successfully have encountered; 
the only ruining effects being a probable shortening 
of his days and a lessening of his inestimably valu- 
able labors. 

Time bestows rewards. Intellectual greatness must 
be recompensed. An eternal fitness clasps hands and 
joins hearts with an eternal justice. 

I am reminded of Gilfillin: Beecher rises above 
other men, not as one limb of a tree rises above 
another limb, but as the sun of heaven rises above 
the tree itself. 

Our age will not see his equal. His place may 
never be filled. The great light will probably never 
be relighted. He who strung the lyre that Mrs. 
Stowe played for the freedom of the bondsmen will be 
known while our race endures, so long as the Anglo- 
Saxon tongue is known or spoken. 

Dust he is, and unto dust he must return. As he 
has been just and brave and true, so will the infinite 
God be just to him. We should not mourn, except in 
our loss. No! Not even in our loss, for such mourn- 
ing would be selfish. Not for him or his. No! His 
Avork was bravely, nobly done. His — they can live 
proudly — as kings and queens can not live — in the 
memory of a beautiful, resplendant, and growing indi- 
viduality; a luminous sun of intellectual light, closed 
to the eyes of a finite world to open in a gorgeous 
realm of eternal bliss; in the name of a foremost 
nobility of greatness, and an unranked majesty of 
mental force. His — they can live for generations in 
the reflected rays of the departed light — dream sweet 



382 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

dreams of him by night and follow, as best they may, 
in his footsteps by day, ever proud and ever joyful! 

Henry Ward Beecher! Peace to his ashes! Honor 
to his name! Glory to his works! 

As ever, most affectionately, Your Son. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

CHABACTER SKETCHES. 

The most striking, and the predominant character- 
istic of Mr. Beecher was his vitality. It was obvious 
in his person. No one could see his big frame, the 
strong limbs and deep chest, the broad and slightly 
rounded shoulders surmounted by the great head, the 
loose hair thrown back from the full forehead, the 
large eyes unsheltered by the brows, and the heavy 
yet mobile lips, without feeling that the tide of life 
with him was ample and constant. He was capable 
not only of bursts of energy, but of prolonged and ex- 
acting exertion. He was wont to say that the brusque 
changes of our climate made stimulus unnecessary, 
and with him they did. Any purpose that interested 
his feelings found an ardent and sustaining response. 
Any purpose that did not arouse this impulse left him 
dry and uninteresting. He was as famous as an after- 
dinner speaker as he was as a preacher or a public 
orator, and his humor, wit, and eloquence were awak- 
ened as promptly and freely by his glass of water 
as those of others by the most exhilerating wines. 



384: ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

But, unlike many others who have trusted to occasions 
for their inspiration, his range of sensitiveness was 
very wide. He was a passionate lover of nature, 
responsive to the suggestions of intellectual inter- 
course, at once tender and vehement, but he was dom- 
inated more than by all other things by his concep- 
tion of the human soul — its capacities, its rights, its 
hopes, its dangers. 

It was this that made him religious, with the pro- 
found fervor, the varied sympathy, that now touched, 
now aroused the hearts of his hearers. It was this 
that made him the champion of freedom, the untir- 
ing foe of slavery from his seminary days in Cin- 
cinnati to the moment when the civil war ended 
slavery. It was this that made him for nearly a 
half century a writer and speaker the most read, the 
most nearly worshiped, and the most blindly beloved 
of his time. He might also say, with Browning: "I 
was always a fighter," for his curious and compre- 
hensive nature was singularly aggressive, not nar- 
rowly or selfishly so, for he was too broad for that, 
but with the spirit that knows "the delight of battle" 
and forgives and forgets with that greatness with 
which it conquers. His life in Plymouth Church, 
which was necessarily the larger share of his life 
was marked by the same features as that in which 
he was more widely known. It was a long fight in 



CHAKACTEli SKETCHES. 385 

which he strode above rather than encountered ani- 
mosity, and in which his magnanimity made itself 
felt even more than his superb courage and his irre- 
sistible force. Those who remember the crisis of now 
twenty years since, when he turned against the tide of 
patriotic passion he had aroused with a plea — essen- 
tially weak in reason but fine in motive — for a policy 
of conciliation toward the South, will recognize Mr. 
Beecher at his best. 

It is not without difficulty that the greater number 
of his countrymen now living can form a just estimate 
of Mr. Beecher' s work in the days when his work was 
of the greatest service to his country. Of the men, 
who sowed in the heart and conscience of the people 
that love of liberty and that steady hatred of slavery 
which made the war for the Union possible and vic- 
tory in the war certain, none did more than he. His 
labors with pen and voice were incessant. There was 
no faltering, not a moment of weakness, and there was 
no doubting. He was as confident that the right 
would prevail as he was sure that it was the right. 
And his influence was felt in every quarter of the 
Union, hardly less in the South than in the North, 
not less in the centers of free society that New Eng- 
land had established in the West than here where was 
his immediate field of activity. When he spoke or 
wrote on this subject his inspiration never failed him, 



386 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

for his heart was always aflame. And, curiously, it 
was in his anti-slavery addresses that his shrewdness, 
his rugged sense, his intimate sympathy with the 
common life of the farmer and the workman, his 
homely yet biting wit, were shown and were effective, 
even more than in his other utterances. 

Mr. Beecher was hardly a theologian. He found 
it too difficult to accept any authority to become 
learned in a science which rests primarily on author- 
ity. His religion was a strange combination, in which 
it was not hard to set one idea against another, to see 
suggestions from the Hebrew prophets contend- 
ing with suggestions from Herbert Spencer, and to 
find the tender sentiments of the pietists contradicted 
by the impulse of the warring reformer. It was 
enough for him that he felt the inspiration of each; 
he did not stop to reconcile them. But of one ele- 
ment of all religion — the sense of the brotherhood of 
men, the fatherhood of God — he never failed to give 
evidence. It was a natural consequence of such a 
nature that he was always a speaker rather than a 
writer, or even a thinker. He wrote much. Apart 
from his reported sermons, his published works — 
chiefly essays, prepared lectures, and articles for the 
weekly journals — are very voluminous. But they 
will scarcely survive him long. His own life, his own 
voice, were the conditions of his influence. In the 



CHARACTER SKETCHES. 387 

same connection it may be said that his personal con- 
duct was in a sense independent of his work. He had 
the defects of his qualities, or he never could have 
permitted his reputation to be clouded by the scandal 
of 1874, in which his part, whether innocent or not, 
was most pitiful. But those who know what he was 
and what he' did for the people of the United States in 
the course of his long life will not hesitate to say that 
it was much, nor to pay to his memory the tribute of 
grateful affection. 

Mr. Beecher's personality was not hampered by 
parsonality. He was not straight-laced in demeanor. 
His vital forces continually overflowed and, like the 
internal fires of a volcano, melted the snow of formal- 
ity. His sensuous nature would have suffered a worse 
fate than St. Anthony in the chains of asceticism. 
The study was not his place — but the world. He 
needed events. Beauty in any form was not only a 
luxury but a necessity. Color intoxicated him. He 
carried at one time in his vest pocket four little unset 
gems. I think they were two rubies and two emer- 
alds. I have seen him take them out, unroll the bit 
of paper, and, turning them into the palm of his hand, 
watch the play of complementary colors, as if it 
linked his mind with some occult harmony beyond all 
human discords. 

One does not have to think long to know that a 



388 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

man with these strong elemental characteristics would 
be stifled in the wrappings of ecclesiasticism. We 
feel instinctively in looking over his career that he 
was not so much an Erasmus or Melancthon as a Mar- 
tin Luther. And like Martin Luther he needed the 
stimulus of great events. 

It is absurd to say, as has recently been said, that 
he was a brilliant after-dinner talker. He never was. 
He did not bend to that persiflage with the willowy 
grace of a Depew or the sesquipedalian volubility of 
an Evarts. • 

But make him the champion of millions, let the 
issue be a nation's life, bring him face to face with a 
howling English mob, and he rose to the occasion like 
a Webster. 

His generous disposition led him to comply with 
all kinds of requests, and to go and speak whenever 
he was wanted. And I have heard him at club recep- 
tions and dramatic fund benefits when he had nothing 
to say, and said it prosaically — standing desolate in 
his great good-nature. 

He presents himself to me not as a casuist, but as 
a captain, and I have often speculated as to what he 
might have been, with his forensic gifts, in the Senate 
Chamber or anywhere abreast of great events. 

The large diapason of some instruments will not 
answer to seolian touches. 




The Last Look. 



CHARACTEK SKETCHES. 391 

Doubtless the quiet rectories of the world have 
held some of the noblest heroes, who served their 
Master uneventfully and faithfully, drinking their 
afternoon tea with the sisters in slippers, and weigh- 
ing forever with sober duty the trivial cares of the 
sheepfold. Let us not disparage them. They kept 
the great distracted world with its momentous issues 
beyond earshot, but they paced their little round of 
individual sorrows and losses with self-sacrificing 
fidelity. 

It is only here and there that a pulpit rose to a na- 
tional forum and the sword of the Lord became the 
sword of the people. 

There never was any hush of seclusion in Plymouth 
Church. Mr. Beecher may have struck back viciously 
at New England Calvinism, and now and then imi- 
tated Colonel Ingersoll in trying to stamp out hell, but 
he could not quite cut away from the New England 
spirit. The New Hampshire granite would outcrop in 
spite of the professional chair, and the blood that 
flowed at Lexington and crimsoned bright Champlain 
bubbled up both in the pulpit and in the congregation. 

They did not shut their doors to the events of the 
time; they invited them in and wrestled with them. 

It is in the white heat of events that we see Mr. 
Beecher now. He does not live for us in the pallid 



392 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 

glow of pastoral duties. We take up his twenty 
volumes of sermons and the vital iridescence is gone. 

Loved, almost worshiped, by one of the richest, 
stanchest congregations in the East, filling every 
measure of duty and love to his charge, we still find 
it difficult to recognize in him the clerical shepherd. 
In spite of the great bulk of his work, which was 
pastoral, he appears to us now as a pioneer made for 
special and not general duties. Endowed with a puis- 
sant vitality that must have brought its thorns with 
it, Mr. Beecher stands at this moment, silent in his 
immortality, of strangely heroic proportions. 

It is not the fashion just now to admire wholly 
vital men. The ideal man is a disembodied affair. 

But we must not forget that some of the grandest 
types were magnificently vital, with large appetites 
and surging impulses. 

Your Shakespeares and your Goethes were powerful 
furnaces that shook by the violence of their combus- 
tion the delicate machinery they propelled. 

Your Handel was like an oak whose roots are in a 
morass but whose branches are in heaven. 

And from St. Paul to John Knox we shall have to 
follow the events of history by the great vital captains 
that helped to make it. 

I leave to aesthetic pietism to say, if in its efforts to 



CHARACTER SKETCHES. 893 

establish the purely psychic man it is not in clanger of 
abolishing the cosmic man. 

We must not regard Mr. Beecher's death as the ex- 
tinguishment of a taper; rather let us think of it as 
the explosion of a meteor that throws a sudden light 
upon the world and reveals many noble deeds and a 
few crawling and obscene creatures. 

But it also fell upon Court and Cathedral, touched 
the Bourse with a sad arresting ray, stopped the Leg- 
islature, dropped the national emblem, and shot its 
myriad pencils of pathos into countless human hearts 
from the hierarchy of religion to the lowest drudge of 
labor. 

Grand contemporaneous tribute and verdict. He 
was human, but he was great and we loved him. 

For some of us in the dusty highway, where the 
rose of Sharon can not bloom for the soot, and the 
voice that was heard in the cool of the evening is 
drowned in the iron clang, it is inexpressibly sweet to 
think that this oak, planted in a Calvinistic conserva- 
tory, burst through the roof with abundance of sap 
and cast its grateful shadows over our pilgrimage and 
wooed the birds to come and sing in its branches. 

For more than half a century Mr. Beecher spoke 
in public. His addresses were on divers subjects — 
political, religious, educational, agricultural, chari- 
table and other.. He was gifted with a massive frame, 



394 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a fine presence, a powerful and well modulated voice, 
and an impressive demeanor. Whatever lie said bore 
the mark of earnestness. He threw himself into 
a subject impulsively. His diction was something 
marvelous. Although he never spoke from manu- 
script, and in his most polished addresses relied only 
on the briefest of captions, he was never at a loss for 
a word, never failed to get the most apt expression. 

He had above most orators the power to sway an 
audience as he saw fit. He could touch and arouse, 
could move to tears and inspire to enthusiasm. In 
his lighter and more genial mood he would bring out 
smiles and bursts of most hearty laughter. His quaint 
conceits would often appear in his pulpit utterances, 
and on such occasions his enemies accused him of 
buffoonery, solely because of some garbled extracts 
which found their way . into print. Eead, however, 
with the context as they were uttered, their true mean- 
ing and purpose were at once perceived. He dealt 
less in imagery or word painting than in illustration 
and analogy, and rarely indulged in quotations. His 
appeals were to human feeling no less than to human 
reason. 

Ordinarily he spoke slowly and with deliberation, 
but he would now and again indulge in passionate 
outbursts in which the words came like a torrent. 
Stenographers and other reporters of his addresses 



CHARACTER SKETCHES. 395 

never felt quite sure of him. He would proceed for 
some minutes at the rate of about 120 words a minute, 
and then would suddenly rise to double that speed. 
The reporters, however, had one compensation. Mr. 
Beecher never found fault with their reports. 

Nearly all of his addresses were extemporary in 
the sense that he had little or no notes to guide him. 
In his ordinary addresses, where he was one of several 
speakers at a meeting or assemblage, he would listen 
to those who preceded him and, taking as a text some 
one utterance would construct an address upon that. 
He had to a very marked degree the ability to " think 
upon his feet," and as a consequence was not ruffled 
by interruptions. In fact he often did better after 
being interrupted than before. An outside remark 
would spur him on and he would often use it to the 
discomfiture of the person uttering it. Most effective 
instances of this were had from time to time in Ply- 
mouth Church itself. 

He prided himself on having made the pulpit of 
his church a free platform. From it spoke the heroes 
of the old anti-slavery fight with Wendell Phillips in 
the van. There it was that they raised money to buy 
the liberty of slaves. It re-echoed with a welcome to 
Kossuth and with appeals for the oppressed abroad 
and at home. From it came urgent calls for charity, 
for education, for freedom, and for humanity. No 



396 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

good cause ever found Mr. Beecher remiss. His heart, 
his purse, and his voice responded in no uncertain or 
half-hearted way. 

His doctrinal addresses, including his famous Yale 
lectures, were gems in their way. The thought was 
couched in vigorous language, the illustrations were 
most varied, and the logical sequence was perfect. He 
could dress an idea in most intelligible as well as 
striking garb, and his comparisons were fitting as well 
as admirable 

He was in great demand as a lecturer all over the 
country, and was always sure of a large and attentive 
audience. People would go to hear him deliver the 
same lecture again and again. But it was never the 
same lecture. The topic was the same, but the lan- 
guage, the illustrations, and the methods of reasoning 
were different. He never committed a lecture to 
memory, but relied on the inspiration of the moment 
to guide him in his manner of viewing or discussing 
his subject. The lecture would not be the same on 
two successive evenings. He kept abreast of the 
times, took a lively interest in current topics, and 
would weave in his discourse illustrations or incidents 
suggested by the occurrences of the day. 

It was on festive occasions that his genialty in dis- 
course found full vent. At public dinners, notably 
those of the New England Society in this city for 



CHARACTER SKETCHES. 397 

many years, he was looked upon as the especial guest. 
He would at one moment set the tables in a roar, and 
next minute would tijjill them to the quick with an 
appeal to their sympathy. It was a tribute to his 
ability that the dinner committee generally managed 
so that Mr. Beecher was the last speaker. Every one 
waited to the end in order to hear him speak. Presi- 
dents, Governors, and political magnates would precede 
him, but his advent would be anxiously waited for. He 
had no set speech for such occasions. At one time 
the burden of his talk would be good-natnred raillery ; 
at another it would be some earnest plea for progress 
or for charity. Whatever it was it was well said and 
well received. 

In his political addresses Mr. Beecher rarely ven- 
tured on the domain of statistics, although when he 
did so he showed great art in his handling of figures. 
His appeals were usually to the feelings and the con- 
sciences of his auditors. He spoke in every Presi- 
dential campaign and in many of the minor contests, 
among them that for municipal reform in his own 
city. In recent ye,ars his most noted addresses of the 
kind were the memorable one in the Garfield cam 
paign, in which he fairly flayed by his sarcasm the 
brood of culminators whose argument consisted in 
chalking the figures 329 oh pavements and cellar 
doors; that in the Cooper Union, wherein he urged 



398 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

the renomination of President Arthur, and his Brook- 
lyn Rink speech in favor of Cleveland. 

Mr. Beecher had no fixed formula for beginning an 
address. He would sometimes open up his subject 
with his conclusion, and gradually show the train of 
reasoning leading to it. At other times he would 
begin by announcing certain undisputed facts and 
lead by easy stages to the result. He bound himself 
by no set of rules, and he followed none. He used 
few gestures. 

His play of feature and his mimetic skill were so 
remarkable that it was often said of him that he 
would have been a wonderful actor had he chosen that 
calling. He felt too strongly what he said, however, 
to have simulated a passion. When he pleaded for a 
cause he did so with his whole being. His voice 
would grow husky, his frame would tremble, and tears 
would follow one another down his cheeks. His 
audiences, listening with rapt attention, would feel 
as he did, and be drawn the closer toward him. His 
spell was magnetic. 

Henry Ward Beecher is already as historical a 
character as Patrick Henry, with the exception that, 
whereas there are multitudes living who have seen and 
heard Mr. Beecher, and many who knew him person- 
ally, there are few, if any, who can remember Patrick 
Henry. Mr. Beecher was the most versatile and ready 



CHARACTER SKETCHES. 399 

orator this country has ever produced, a kind of Glad- 
stone in the pulpit. He was a master of every style; 
could be as deliberate and imposing as Webster, as 
chaste and self-contained as Phillips, as witty and ir- 
regular as Thomas Corwin, as grandiloquent as 
Charles Sumner, almost as dramatic as Father Taylor, 
as melodramatic as Gough. 

To attempt to analyze the sources of his power is 
like exhibiting the human features separately in the 
hope of giving the effect of a composite whole, for 
whether he moved his finger, elevated his brow, 
smiled, frowned, whispered or vociferated, each act or 
expression derived its power from the fact that it was 
the act or expression of Henry Ward Beecher. His 
oratory was marked by the entire absence of trammels 
of rhetoric, gesture, or even grammar. Not that his 
style was not ordinarily grammatical and rhetorical, 
but that he would never allow any rules to impede the 
expression of his thought, and especially of his feel- 
ings; nor was he restrained by theological forms, and 
always appeared independently and courageous. He 
stimulated the intellect by wit; he entered the heart 
and mind by humor; he melted the heart by unmixed 
pathos. The strange power of creating an expectation 
with every sentence he uttered always characterized 
him, and though he might on certain occasions, when 
not at his best, close without meeting the expectation 



400 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

aroused, no dissatisfaction was expressed or apparently 
felt by his hearers. 

A metropolitan in the pulpit; a magician upon the 
platform; a center of life and good cheer in the house; 
a prince in society; possessed of exhaustless vitality, 
warmth and energy, he suggested to many who gazed 
upon him the apostrophe of Hamlet to the ideal man: 
" What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! 
how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how ex- 
press and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in 
apprehension, how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! 
the paragon of animals ! " 

Such a piece of work was Henry Ward Beecher 
when in the prime of active life. He had no predeces- 
sor and can have no successor till a similar ancestry 
and life, the one coeval with the birth and the other 
running parallel with the lusty youth of such a nation, 
and a similar life-and-death struggle, born in a conflict 
of moral principles fought out under a democratic form 
of government, shall combine to evolve a similar 
career. The course of human history does not furnish 
a probability of another coincidence of elements so ex- 
traordinary. 



CHAPTEK XXIX. 

SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 

Mr. Beecher never delivered a discourse in which 
there were not many gems. A hasty glance through 
a few of his published utterances discloses these epi- 
grammatic thoughts upon every page. A few of them 
are culled and presented below, but they of necessity 
lack completeness and serve better to show Mr. 
Beecher' s originality of expression than the breadth 
of his mind. 

His ever exuberant and joyous nature was a con- 
stant protest against the ascetic in religion or in daily 
life: 

"Don't mope. Be young as long as you live. 
Laugh a good deal. Frolic every day. A low tone of 
mind is unhealthy." 

"A lawyer who works ten months in the year, and 
then for two solid months amuses himself, will last 
twice as long as if he took no recreation." 

"Men have come to think that tears are more 
sacred than smiles. No! Laughing is as divine as 
crying." 

26 401 



402 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Humor usually tends toward good nature, and 
everything that tends toward good nature tends toward 
good grace." 

" If laughing's a sin, I don't see what the Lord lets 
so many funny things happen for." 

"Having wit and buoyancy of spirits, let them 
Hash out in services of religion. Don't consider it 
necessary to rake them up and hide them." 

" Humor is the atmosphere in which grace most 
flourishes." 

"I say when a person becomes a Christian that he 
loses nothing that he should not be afraid to keep. 
If ever you are going to be a Christian, don't set out 
to be a gloomy-eyed, twilight-faced, bat-like Chris- 
tian." 

His struggle for the abolition of slavery provoked 
him to many beautiful and stirring utterances, of which 
the following are not the best types: 

" That gospel which sanctions ignorance and op- 
pression for three millions of men, what fruit or flower 
has it to shake down for the healing of the nations? 
It is cursed in its own roots, and blasted in its own 
boughs." 

" Whether the Africans are an inferior race or not, 
it is evident that our destiny in some respects is bound 
up with them, and the study of their interests is the 
study of our salvation. This African race, in the 
Omnipotent hand, may be the instrument for our de- 



SELECTIONS FROM WHITINGS. 403 

struction, if we are to be destroyed. They may cling 
to our feet and entangle us in their final miseries." 

Love, motherhood and the family were favorite 
themes with him: 

" Oh, that men could be kept courting all the days 
of their life! What a school the school of love is!" 

" A mother's heart does more in the bringing up of 
children, a million times, than a mother's hand, though 
the hand is sometimes quite busy." 

" I think love grows between husband and wife by 
expressions of affection. I know there is a stately dig- 
nity in vogue. Husband and wife sit over against 
each other like those great statues of Memnon in 
Egypt; there they are, vast, stony and hard." 

" You that live long enough will see women vote, 
and when you see women voting you will see less 
lying, less brutality and more public spirit, heroism 
and romance in public affairs." 

" Robert Burns — A true poet, made not by the 
schools, brought up with no external culture or assist- 
ance. He came as a flower comes in spring. We say 
that he was a man ol the people. No; he was far 
above the people. He was ordained to be an interpre- 
ter of God to his kind, then and forevermore." 

" Of all the American novelists who have passed 
away the author of ' The House of the Seven Gables ' 
seems to me the greatest." 

" Grant had the patience of Fate and the force of 



404: ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Tlior. He lias left to memory only such weaknesses 
as connect him with humanity and such virtues as will 
rank him among heroes." 

" John Brown's name will travel through the ages 
as an illustrious example of what a man may do who 
is willing to suffer for a great principle." 

" Emerson, the calm, the observational, not an 
enthusiast in religion, but with patriotism and hu- 
manity to make him a brave witness. It took seven 
generations of ministers to make one Ralph Waldo 
Emerson." 

" It is a noble thing to see a man so in sympathy 
with his time and work, as Tennyson is, that even 
with expiring strength he still tries to chant the truth 
of God to the age in which he lives." 

" Peter Cooper — a manly man, who lived for his 
fellow-men. May God increase the procession of such 
men! He will increase it. It is a tendency." 

" Though slow, Abraham Lincoln was sure. A 
thousand men could not make him plant his foot 
before he was ready; ten thousand could not move it 
after he had set it down." 

" Grover Cleveland, like Washington, has the great 
faculty of maintaining his own personality and enlarg- 
ing his own knowledge." 

" I would not weaken one single sinew in the sturdy 
arm of Bismarck." 

"God raised up a Cromwell to wrest Liberty from 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 405 

the King's hands and set it firmly upon its feet before 
the nations of the earth." 

" Charles Sumner was a republican statesman be- 
cause he sought the welfare of all, and not of a privi- 
leged class." 

" Spencer will be found to have given to the world 
more truth in one lifetime than any other man that 
has lived in the schools of philosophy." 

He was a champion of temperance upon occasion, 
but never made a hobby of it. 

We once heard him in one of his marked efforts in 
this cause, when he appeared on the platform of the 
Cooper Institute, New York City, how well we remem- 
ber the opening of his oration, in these words, "7 am 
a son of Lyman Beecher" — Lyman Beecher who had 
been the great head and front of the cause of temper- 
ance. Thus it was that the son throughout his career 
was ever a ready-full-armed combatant for the cause 
that his mighty sire had brought to the front among 
the great questions of the century. 

" We drink, not to gratify the palate but for a 
business purpose. That being the case, we may begin 
with the milder beverages, just as we begin our fire 
with pine shavings, not only because we can light 
them so easily, but also because we want them to set 
on fire something solider. And wine is stepstone to 
brandy. Beer is stepstone the other way. It does 



406 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

not lead up to brandy, but it leads down to drunk and 
beastly drunk." 

" Intemperance is the fertile source of crime. 
Have you done anything about it?" 

At another time he wrote on the training of 
children : 

"I thank God for two things — yes, for a thousand; 
but for two among many: First, that I was born and 
bred in the country, of parents that gave me a sound 
constitution and a noble example. I never can pay 
back what I got from my parents. If I were to raise 
a monument of gold higher than heaven it would be 
no expression of the debt of gratitude which I owe to 
them, for that which they unceasingly gave, by the 
heritage of their body and the heritage of their souls, 
to me. And next to that I am thankful that I was 
brought up in circumstances where I never became 
acquainted with wickedness." 

In the closing paragraph of this letter of advice to 
parents, he said: 

" Keep your children at home at night. There is 
many a sod that lies over the child whose downfall 
began by vagrancy at night, and there is many a child 
whose heartbreaking parents would give the world if 
the sod did lie over them." 

Another letter speaks of the evils of night work 
and late amusements: 

" I think the judgments formed at night are never 
so solid and fresh as judgments formed in the morn- 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 407 

ing. If in the morning a man is without charity, if 
he is despondent, if he is dull, if he is unnerved, you 
may be sure that he is living wrong. For the order 
of nature is, that a man should rise from his bed in 
the morning as birds rise, singing and in perfect 
health. A man rises buoyant and has his best hours 
in the early day. For although perhaps the fancy 
may not be so brilliant in the early day, the judgment 
is better. The conclusions and determinations which 
a man forms in the early day are apt to be sounder 
and safer than those which he forms at night. Fancy 
for the night, judgment for the day. ... If our 
nights could be shortened at one end and lengthened 
at the other it would be better for us. Get up early; 
breakfast early; work early. Use the day for the 
works of the day, and the night for the works of recu- 
peration and not for works of darkness." 

The observance of the Sabbath was the subject of 
another letter: 

" The Sabbath is every man's day — especially 
every man's who wants to be stronger, higher, purer, 
nobler than he has been or is. It is a day made on 
purpose to elevate men. It is not a day designed to 
enable the church to get a hitch on folks. It is not a 
day on which ecclesiastical authorities are to watch 
men with jealousy. It is the common people's great 
liberty day ; and they are bound to see to it that work 
does not come into it. Not because work is dishonor- 
able, not because there is a special stigma to be 
attached to working on Sunday, but because they can 



408 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

not make it what it ought to be for them if they do 
suffer work to come into it." 

The misconceptions of religion and the quarreling 
of the sects were frequent topics with him: 

" Eeligion is a very slim, lean, gaunt, poor, ill-fed 
thing as it is ordinarily conceived of in this world." 

"Men sit around a tool-chest quarreling about 
saws and planes and chisels. They are hot building 
anything; they are debating about tools. They are 
fit to be a theological seminary." 

" That kind of revival preaching which seeks to 
drive men into heaven by the fear of hell is not 
Christianity. It is the worst form of Paganism." 

" Sects are candlesticks, and a man or woman that 
is big enough to be good for anything is too large for 
any sect." 

" Why is it that men think it incumbent upon them 
to be cats and dogs in religion and gentlemen in 
everything outside of it?" 

Sunday with him was not a day of gloom, and ne 
took frequent occasion to show the needlessness of 
being sombre on that day. 

" I esteem the awfulness that is attached to Sun- 
day, and church, and pulpit, the greatest mistake of 
Christendom." 

"The prevalent idea of keeping the Sabbath is that 
it is a day on which certain things must not be done. 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 409 

To the majority of people, Sunday is a day full of 
nots." 

" I am in favor of any movement that helps any- 
body to appreciate Sunday as a day of rest, of health- 
ful and pure pleasures, and that will gently lead men, 
women and children from the things of low estate up 
to the higher." 

Some of his utterances on the question of death 
and the future life are peculiarly appropriate at this 
time: 

" To one who is living aright, no death can be sud- 
den and no place unfavorable. One step and all roads 
meet." 

"Dying is the best part of life to one who knows 
how to live worthily." 

"If the life that has gone out has been like music, 
full of concords, full of sweetness, richness, delicacy, 
truth, then there are two ways to look at it. One is 
to say, ' I have not lost it !' Another is to say, 
'Blessed be God that I have had it so long!' " 

" When we comprehend the fullness of what death 
will do for us, in all our outlook and forelook, dying 
is triumphing. Nowhere is there so fair a sight, so 
sweet a prospect, as when a young soul is passing 
away out of life and time through the gate of death — 
the rosy, the royal, the golden, the pearly gate of 
death." 

" Death is as sweet as flowers are. It is as blessed 
as bird-singing in spring. I never hear of the 



410 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

death of any one who is ready to die that my heart 
does not sing like a harp. I am sorry for those that 
are left behind, but not for those who have gone 
before. 

" As I grow older and come nearer to death, I look 
upon it more and more with complacent joy, and out of 
every longing I hear God say : ' O, trusting hungering 
one, come to me.' What the other life will bring I 
know not, only that I shall awake in God's likeness 
and see him as he is. 

" Beat on, then, O heart, and yearn for dying. I 
have drunk at many a fountain, but thirst came again; 
I have fed at many a bounteous table, but hunger re- 
turned; I have seen many bright and lovely things, 
but while I gazed their lustre faded. There is noth- 
ing here that can give me rest, but when I behold 
thee, O God, I shall be satisfied." 

How well he understands the ministry of grief! 

" A Christian man's life is laid in the loom of time 
to a pattern which he does not see, but God does; and 
his heart is a shuttle. On one side of the loom is sor- 
row, and on the other side is joy ; and the shuttle, struck 
alternately by each, flies back and forth, carrying the 
thread, which is white or black, as the pattern needs ; 
and in the end, when God shall lift up the finished 
garment, and all its changing hues shall glance out, it 
will then appear that the deep and dark colors were 
as needful to beauty as the bright and high colors." 

He loved children and the boy still fresh in his 
manhood. 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 411 

" When your own child comes in from the street, 
and has learned to swear from the bad boys congre- 
gated there, it is a very different thing to you from 
what it was when you heard the profanity of those 
boys as you passed them. Now it takes hold of you, 
and makes you feel that you are a stockholder in the 
public morality. Children make men better citizens. 
Of what use would an engine be to a ship, if it were 
lying loose in the hull ? It must be fastened to it 
with bolts and screws before it can propel the vessel. 
Now a childless man is just like a loose engine. A 
man must be bolted and screwed to the community be- 
fore he can begin to work for its advancement, and 
there are no such screws and bolts as children." 

He had a most Christ-like contempt for the hypo- 
crite, whom he scourged with heavy evangelical whips, 
/but the tenderest Christian love for earnest men strug- 
gling after nobleness. ' 

" I think the wickedest people on earth are those 
who use a force of genius to make themselves selfish 
in the noblest things, keeping themselves aloof from 
the vulgar and the ignorant and the unknown, rising 
higher and higher in taste, till they sit, ice upon ice, 
on the mountain-top of eternal congelation." 

"Men are afraid of slight outward acts which will 
injure them in the eyes of others, while they are heed- 
less of the damnation which throbs in their souls in 
hatreds and jealousies and revenges." 

"Many people use their refinements as a spider 



412 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

uses his web, to catch the weak upon, that they may 
be mercilessly devoured. Christian men should use 
refinement on this principle: The more I have, the 
more I owe to those who are less than L" 

He valued the substance of man more than his 
accidents. 

" We say a man is 'made.' What do we mean? 
That he has got the control of his lower instincts, so 
that they are only fuel to his higher feelings, giving 
force to his nature ? That his affections are like vines, 
sending out on all sides blossoms and clustering 
fruits? That his tastes are so cultivated, that all 
beautiful things speak to him, and bring him their 
delight? That his understanding is opened, so that 
he walks through every hall of knowledge and gathers 
its treasures? That his moral feelings are so devel- 
oped and quickened, that he holds sweet commerce 
with Heaven ? Oh, no ! — none of these things ! He 
is cold and dead in heart, and mind, and soul. Only 
his passions are alive; but — he is worth $500,000! 

" And we say a man is ' ruined.' Are his wife 
and children dead? Oh, no! Have they had a quar- 
rel, and are they separated from him ? Oh, no ! Has 
he lost his reputation through crime? No. Is his 
reason gone? Oh, no! it's as sound as ever. Is he 
struck through with disease? No; he has lost his 
property, and he is ruined. The man ruined? , When 
shall we learn that ' a man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things he possesseth?' " 

Mr. Beecher's God has the gentle and philan- 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 413 

tliropic qualities of Jesus of Nazareth, with omnipo- 
tence added. Religious emotion comes out in his 
prayers, sermons, and lectures, as the vegetative power 
of the earth in the manifold plants and flowers of 
spring. 

" The sun does not shine for a few trees and flow- 
ers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine on 
the mountain-top waves its sombre boughs and cries, 
' Thou art my sun ! ' And the little meadow- violet 
lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed 
breath, ' Thou art my sun ! And the grain in a thou- 
sand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, 
' Thou art my sun ! ' 

" So God sits effulgent in heaven, not for a favored 
few, but for the universe of life; and there is no crea- 
ture so poor or so low, that he may not look up with 
childlike confidence and say, ' My Father ! thou art 
mine! ' " 

" When once the filial feeling is breathed into the 
heart, the soul can not be terrified by augustness, or 
justice, or any form of Divine grandeur; for then, to 
such a one, all the attributes of God are but so many 
arms stretched abroad through the universe, to gather 
and to press to his bosom those whom he loves. The 
greater he is the gladder are ive, so that he be our 
father still. 

" But if one consciously turns away from God, or 
fears him, the nobler and grander the representation 
be, the more terrible is his conception of the Divine 
Adversary that frowns upon him. The God whom 



414: ANECDOTES OF HENKY WAKD BEECHEK. 

love beholds rises upon the horizon like mountains 
which carry summer up their sides to the very top; 
but that sternly just God whom sinners fear stands 
cold against the sky, like Mont Blanc, and from his 
icy sides the soul, quickly sliding, plunges headlong 
down to unrecalled destruction." 

He had hard words for such as get only the form 
of religion, or but little of its substance. 

" There are some Christians whose secular life is an 
arid, worldly strife, and Avhose religion is but a turbid 
sentimentalism. Their life runs along that line where 
the overflow of the Nile meets the desert. It is the 
boundary line between sand and mud." 

"Many of our churches defy Protestantism. Grand 
cathedrals are they, which make us shiver as we enter 
them. The windows are so constructed as to exclude 
the light and inspire a religious awe. The walls are 
of stone, which makes us think of our last home. The 
ceilings are sombre, and the pews coffin-colored. 

" Then the services are composed to these circum- 
stances, and hushed music goes trembling along the 
aisles, and men move softly, and would on no account 
put on their hats before they reach the door; but 
when they do, they take a long breath, and have such 
a sense of relief to be in the free air, and comfort 
themselves with the thought that they've been good 
Christians ! 

" Now this idea of worship is narrow and false. 
The house of God should be a joyous place for the 
right use of all our faculties." 



SELECTIONS FKOM WRITINGS. 415 

" There ought to be such an atmosphere in every 
Christian church, that a man going there and sitting 
two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and 
carry home a fire to kindle for the right use of all 
our faculties." 

" The call to religion is not a call to he better than 
your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion 
is relative to the individual." 

" My best presentations of the gospel to you are so 
incomplete! Sometimes, when I am alone, I have 
such sweet and rapturous visions of the love of God 
and the truths of his word, that I think, if I could 
speak to you then, I should move your hearts. I am 
like a child, who, walking forth, some sunny sum- 
mer's morning, sees grass and flowers all shining with 
drops of dew. ' Oh,' he cries, ' I'll carry these beauti- 
ful things to my mother ! ' And, eagerly plucking 
them, the dew drops into his little palm, and all the 
charm is gone. There is but grass in his hand, and 
no longer pearls." 

" There are many professing Christians who are 
secretly vexed on account of the charity they have to 
bestow and the self-denial they have to use. If, 
instead of the smooth prayers which they do pray, 
they should speak out the things which they really 
feel, they would say when they go home at night, ' O 
Lord, I met a poor curmudgeon of yours to-day, a 
miserable, unwashed brat, and I gave him sixpence, 
and I have been sorry for it ever since ;' or, ' O Lord, 



416 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

if I had not signed those articles of faith, I might 
have gone to the theater this evening. Your religion 
deprives me of a great deal of enjoyment, but I mean 
to stick to it. There's no other way of getting into 
heaven, I suppose.' 

" The sooner such men are out of the church, the 
better." 

" The youth-time of churches produces enterprise; 
their age, indolence; but even this might be borne, 
did not these dead men sit in the door of their sepid- 
chres, crying out against every living man who refuses 
to wear the livery of death. In India, when the hus- 
band dies, they burn his widow with him. I am 
almost tempted to think, that, if, with the end of 
every pastorate, the church itself were disbanded and 
destroyed, to be gathered again by the succeeding 
teacher, we should thus secure an immortality of 
youth." 

" A religious life is not a thing which spends it- 
self. It is like a river, which widens continually, and 
is never so broad or so deep as at its mouth, where it 
rolls into the ocean of eternity." 

" God made the world to relieve an over-full crea- 
tive thought; as musicians sing, as we talk, as artists 
sketch, when full of suggestions. What profusion is 
there in his work! When trees blossom, there is not 
a single breast-pin but a whole bosom full of gems, 
and of leaves they have so many suits that they can 
throw them away to the winds all summer long. 
What unnumbered cathedrals has he reared in the 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 417 

forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, 
and haunted evermore by tremulous music ! and in the 
heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out of 
his hand, faster than sparks out of a mighty forge!" 

"Oh, let the soul alone! Let it go to God as best 
it may! It is entangled enough. It is hard enough 
for it to rise above the distractions which environ it. 
Let a man teach the rain how to fall, the clouds how 
to shape themselves and move their airy rounds, the 
seasons how to cherish and garner the universal abun- 
dance ; but let him not teach a soul to pray, on whom 
the Holy Ghost doth brood!" 

He recognized the difference between religion and 
theology. 

" How sad is that field from which battle hath just 
departed! By as much as the valley was exquisite in 
its loveliness, is it now sublimely sad in its desolation. 
Such to me is the Bible when a fighting theologian 
has gone through it. 

"How wretched a spectacle is a garden into which 
the cloven-footed beasts have entered! That which 
yesterday was fragrant, and shone all over with 
crowded beauty, is to-day rooted, despoiled, trampled, 
and utterly devoured, and all over the ground you 
shall find but the rejected cuds of flowers and leaves, 
and forms that have been champed for their juices and 
then rejected. Such to me is the Bible when the 
pragmatic prophecy-monger and the swinish utilitarian 
have toothed its fruits and craunched its blossoms. 

" O garden of the Lord! whose seeds dropped down 
37 



418 ANECDOTES OF HENKY WARD BEECHER. 

from heaven, and to whom angels bear watering dews 
night by night! O flowers and plants of righteous- 
ness! O sweet and holy fruits! We walk among you 
and gaze with loving eyes, and rest under your odor- 
ous shadows; nor will we with sacrilegious hand tear 
you, that we may search the secret of your roots, nor 
spoil you, that we may know how such wondrous grace 
and goodness are evolved within you! " 

""What a pin is, when the diamond has dropped 
from its setting, is the Bible when its emotive truths 
have been taken away. What a babe's clothes are 
when the babe has slipped out of them into death and 
the mother's arms clasp only raiment, would be the 
Bible, if the Babe of Bethlehem, and the truths of 
deep-heartedness that clothes his life should slip out 
of it." 

" There is no food for soul or body which God has 
not symbolized. He is light for the eye, sound for 
the ear, bread for food, wine for weariness, peace for 
trouble. Every faculty of the soul, if it would but 
open its door, might see Christ standing over against 
it, and silently asking by his smile, ' Shall I come in 
unto thee ? ' But men open the door and look down, 
not up, and thus see him not. So it is that men sigh 
on, not knowing what the soul wants, but only that it 
needs something. Our yearnings are homesickness 
for heaven ; our sighings are for God, just as children 
that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob 
in their slumber, know not that they sob for their 
parents. The soul's inarticulate moanings are the 



SELECTIONS FliOM WRITINGS. 419 

affections yearning for the Infinite, but having no one 
to tell them what it is that ails them.'" 

" I feel sensitive about theologies. Theology is 
good in its place ; but when it puts its hoof upon a 
living, palpitating, human heart, my heart cries out 
against it." 

" There are men marching along the company of 
Christians on earth, who, when they knock at the gate 
of heaven, will hear God answer, ' I never knew you.' 
'But the ministers did, and the church-books did.' 
'That may be. I never did.' 

"It is no matter who knows a man on earth, if God 
does not know him." 

" The heart-knoAvledge, through God's teaching, is 
true wealth, and they are often poorest who deem 
themselves most rich. I, in the pulpit, preach with 
proud forms to many a humble widow and stricken 
man who might well teach me. The student, specta- 
cled and gray with wisdom, and stuffed with lumbered 
lore, may be childish and ignorant beside some old 
singing saint who brings the word into his study, and 
who, with lens of his own experience, brings down the 
orbs of truth, and beholds through his faith and his 
humility things of which the white-haired scholar 
never dreamed." 

He has eminent integrity, is faithful to his own 
soul, and to every delegated trust. No words are 
needed here as proof. His life is daily argument. 
The public will understand this ; men whose taste he 



420 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

offends, and whose theology he shocks, or to whose 
philosophy he is repugnant, have confidence in the 
integrity of the man. He means what he says, — is 
solid all through. 

" From the beginning, I educated myself to speak 
along the line and in the current of my moral convic- 
tions ; and though, in later days, it has carried me 
through many places where there were some batter- 
ings and bruisings, yet I have been supremely grateful 
that I was led to adopt this course. I would rather 
speak the truth to ten men than blandishments and 
lying to a million. Try it, ye who think there is 
nothing in it ! try what it is to speak with God be- 
hind you, — to speak so as to be only the arrow in the 
bow which the Almighty draws." 

With what affectionate tenderness does this great, 
faithful soul pour out his love to his own church ! 
He invites men to the communion-service. 

" Christian brethren, in heaven you are known by 
the name of Christ. On earth, for convenience sake, 
you are known by the name of Presbyterians, Episco- 
palians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and the like. 
Let me speak the language of heaven, and call you 
simply Christians. Whoever of you has known the 
name of Christ, and feel Christ's life beating within 
him, is invited to remain and sit with us at the table 
of the Lord.' , 

And again, when a hundred were added to his 
church, he says : 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 421 

" My friends, my heart is large to-day. I am like 
a tree upon which rains have fallen till every leaf is 
covered with drops of dew; and no wind goes through 
the boughs but I hear the pattering of some thought of 
joy or gratitude. I love you all more than ever 
before. You are crystalline to me ; your faces are 
radiant ; and I look through your eyes, as through 
windows, into heaven. I behold in each of you an 
imprisoned angel, that is yet to burst forth, and to 
live and shine in the better sphere." 

Here are extracts of that peculiar humor which 
appears in all his works: 

" Sects and Christians that desire to be known by 
the undue prominence of some single feature of Chris- 
tianity are necessarily imperfect just in proportion to 
the distinctness of their peculiarities. The power of 
Christian truth is in its unity and symmetry, and not 
in the saliency or brilliancy of any of its special doc- 
trines. If among painters of the human face and 
form, there should spring up a sect of the eyes, and 
another sect of the nose, a sect of the hand, and a 
sect of the foot, and all of them should agree but in 
the one thing of forgetting that there was a living 
spirit behind the features more important than them 
all, they would too much resemble the schools and 
cliques of Christians, for the spirit of Christ is the 
great essential truth; doctrines are but the features of 
the face, and ordinances but the hands and feet." 

Here are some separate maxims: 



422 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" It is not well for a man to pray cream and live 
skim-milk." 

" The mother's heart is the child's school-room." 

" They are not reformers who simply abhor evil. 
Such men become in the end abhorrent themselves." 

" There are many troubles which you can't cure by 
the Bible and the Hymn-book, but which you can cure 
by a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air." 

" The most dangerous infidelity of the day is the 
infidelity of rich and orthodox churches." 

" The fact that a nation is growing is God's own 
charter of change." 

" There is no class in society who can so ill afford 
to undermine the conscience of the community, or to 
set it loose from its moorings in the eternal sphere, as 
merchants who live upon confidence and credit. Any- 
thing which weakens or paralyzes this is taking beams 
from the foundations of the merchants' own ware- 
house." 

"It would almost seem as if there were a certain 
drollery of art which leads men to think they are 
doing one thing to do another and very different one. 
Thus, men have set up in their painted church win- 
dows the symbolisms of virtues and graces, and the 
images of saints, and even of Divinity itself. Yet, 
now, what does the window do but mock the separa- 
tions and proud isolations of Christian men? For 
there sit the audience, each one taking a separate 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 423 

color ; and there are blue Christians and red Christians, 
there are yellow saints and orange saints, there are 
purple Christians and green Christians ; but how few 
are simple, pure, white Christians, uniting all the car- 
dinal graces, and proud, not of separate colors, but of 
the whole manhood of Christ! " 

" Every mind is entered, like every house, through 
its own door." 

" Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up 
and stuffed." 

•' Compromise is the word that men use when the 
Devil gets a victory over God's cause." 

"A man in the right, with God on his side, is in 
the majority, though he be alone ; for God is multitu- 
dinous above all populations of the earth." 

"A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it; else 
the hand would cut itself, which sought to drive it 
home upon another. The worst lies, therefore, are 
those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true." 

"It is not conviction of truth which does men 
good; it is moral consciousness of truth." 

"A conservative young man has wound up his life 
before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be 
conservative; but when a nation's young men are so, 
its funeral-bell is already rung." 

"Night labor, in time, will destroy the student; 
for it is marrow from his own bones with which he 
fills Tiis lamp." 



424 ANECDOTES OP HENRY WAED BEECHER. 

" I never was sullied in act, nor in thought, nor in 
feeling when I was young. I grew up as pure as a 
woman. And I can not express to God the thanks 
which I owe to my mother, and to my father, and to 
the great household of sisters and brothers among 
whom I lived. And the secondary knowledge of those 
wicked things which I have gained in later life in a 
professional way, I gained under such guards that it 
was not harmful to me." 

" I think to force childhood to associate religion 
with such dry morsels (as the Catechism) is to violate 
the spirit not only of the New Testament, but of com- 
mon sense as well. I know one thing, that if I am 
' lax and latitudinarian, 1 the Sunday Catechism is to 
blame for a part of it. The dinners I have lost 
because I could not go through ' sanctification,' and 
' justification, 1 and ' adoption, 1 and all such questions, 
lie heavily on my memory. I do not know that they 
have brought forth any blossoms. I have a kind of 
grudge against many of those truths that I was 
taught in my childhood, and I am not conscious that 
they have worked up a particle of faith in me. 1 ' 

In the following selections Mr. Beecher's power of 
description is illustrated. 

" The doctor drew near the now cast-away gutter, and 
stooping, plucked two or three of the weeds, and put- 
ting them under his hat-band, laid down his hat on the 
well-stone, while he unrolled the rickety old windlass 
and sent down the remnants of a bucket for water. It 
was an old-fashioned well, of mysterious depth. If 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS 425 

you looked down its narrow ana cmr* tnroat, you saw 
nothing. If you still looked, and dropped a pebble 
down, a faint light was reflected from the crinkling 
water far beloAv. Four or five feet at the top, the 
stones were lined with moss. Up, after long winding, 
came the bucket, spurting out its contents on every 
side, and filling the well with a musical splashing 
sound, reserving hardly enough, at last, to serve for a 
good drink. 'Well, Biah, I understand the old pro- 
verb — truth is at the bottom of the well. If I was to 
go down after the water, very likely there is foul air 
enough down there to put me out like a candle, and if 
I send a bucket down the greatest part leaks out be- 
fore I can reach it. Much work and little truth do 
men get in the wells they dig now-a-days.' " 

" The hall of a dwelling gives you the first impres- 
sions, Sometimes on entering you fear that by some 
mistake you have got into a clothes closet; at others, 
you enter upon a space so small that it is only by a 
dexterous interchange of civilities between yourself 
and the door that you can get in or the door be shut. 
In some halls, so called, a man sees a pair of corkscrew 
stairs coming right down upon him, and fears lest by 
some jugglery he be seized and extracted like a cork 
into some upper space. Often the doors are so ar- 
ranged that what with the shutting of the outside 
door, and the opening of inside ones, the timid 
stranger stands a chance of being impaled on the 
latch, or flapped front and rear, for vigorous springs 
attached to the doors work with such nimbleness that 
one needs to be an expert, or, having opened the door, 



426 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

before lie can dash through, it will spring back on him 
with a 'now — I've-got-you',, air quite alarming." 

"When I walked one day on the top of Mount 
Washington, — glorious day of memory! such another 
day I think I shall not experience till I stand on the 
battlements of the new Jerusalem — how I was dis- 
charged of all imperfection! The wide far-spreading 
country which lay beneath me in beauteous light, how 
heavenly it looked, and I communed Avith God. I had 
sweet tokens that he loved me. My very being rose 
right up into his nature. I walked with him, and the 
cities far and near of New York, and all the cities and 
villages which lay between it and me, with their 
thunder, the wrangling of human passions below me, 
were to me as if they were not." 

" Have you ever stood in Dresden to watch that 
matchless picture of Raphael's, the ' Madonna de San 
Siste ? ' Engravings of it are all through the world ; 
but no engraving has ever reproduced the mother's 
face. The infant Christ that she holds is far more 
nearly represented than the mother. In her face 
there is a mist. It is wonder, it is love, it is adora- 
tion, it is awe; it is all these mingled, as if she held 
in her hands her babe, and yet it was God! That 
picture means nothing to me as it does to the Roman 
Church; but it means everything to me, because I 
believe that every mother should love the God that is 
in her child, and that every mother's heart should be 
watching to discern and see in the child, which is 
more than flesh and blood, something that takes hold 
of immortality and glory." 



SELECTIONS FROM WRITINGS. 427 

" There came to me last week one whose bad ways 
I had known, and whom I had avoided, supposing that 
he was but a sponge; but having since January last 
maintained a better course, he came to me, and, to my 
surprise, said, ' The kindness that some friends have 
shown me has been very comforting and very encour- 
aging.' As I sat there my heart trembled. I rebuked 
myself that I had ever had any other thought than 
that he might be rescued ; and as he went on my heart 
went out towards him. I longed to take him up in 
my arms, and out of the entanglements and tempta- 
tions that beset him, and make a man of him." 

"I am angry when I hear people talk of the 
awful responsibility of being a minister. People 
sometimes say to me, ' I should think you would shud- 
der when you stand up before your congregation.' 
I shudder! What should I shudder for? Do you 
shudder when you stand up before a garden of flow- 
ers ? Do you shudder when you go^ into an orchard 
of fruit in October? Do you shudder when you stand 
up in the midst of all the richness and grandeur of 
nature ? I shudder in your midst ? ' But the respon- 
sibility ! ' I have no responsibility. I am willing to 
do my duty; and what more is there than that? I 
will not stand for the consequences. I will do the 
best I can. I will say the best things I can every 
Sunday; I will bring the truth home to you; and I 
will do it in the spirit of love. Even when I say the 
severest things it is because I am faithful to love. 
' But your care ! ' I have not a bit of care. I forget 
the sermon a great deal quicker than you do. ' Your 



428 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

burden ! ' I have no burden. I take up the battle, 
and I lay the battle aside again as soon as it is over. 
And I shall sleep to-night as sweetly as any man that 
is here. And every man that is in the ministry, and 
is willing to love men and be faithful to them, will 
find joy in it from day to day." 

" I linger, and yet I know that it is in vain by 
added words or by intenser expressions to reach the 
heart. My dear brethren and friends, I am joined to 
you to-night in sympathy, I am joined to you in love. 
We are pilgrims together, we are moving on — of this 
we are conscious. My sight grows dimmer, whiteness 
is coming on these locks, and you are keeping com- 
pany ; I observe it. Those who were little children 
when I came here are now carrying their little chil- 
dren in their arms. The young men with whom I 
took counsel are now speaking with their grand- 
children." 

" Because our acquaintance with vital intelligence, 
sentient life, is limited, because the class of beings 
with which we are familiar exist in unity — unity and 
diversity as far as faculty is concerned, but unity 
without diverse personality — we are not to suppose 
that this exhausts all possible modes of being." 



CHAPTEK XXX. 

MR. BEECHER's BELIEF 

The Atonement. 
"If it be impugning the character of God to teach 
that there is a doctrine of substitution and vicarious- 
ness, by which the just suffer for the unjust, then it is 
a doctrine which strikes clear through outward crea- 
tion. Who pay for vice ? Not the vicious. The 
virtuous pay for it. Who pay the taxes of the com- 
munity ? The men whose vices are the leakages ? 
This community is a vast hull, and at every seam 
there is leaking and leaking. Whose work is it to 
caulk it up ? Why, it is the industrious man that 
pays for the waste of the shiftless man in the long 
run. It is the vice of the community that is the tax- 
gatherer of the community. If it were not for good 
men, communities would break down under the vices 
and crimes of bad men. . . . And if you say it is 
against the idea of divine benevolence that God should 
let just men suffer for unjust men, then your idea of 
divine benevolence was a false one. It is not in 
accordance with past reason; it is not in accordance 



430 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

with the facts of human life; it is not in accordance 
with your own ideas. . . . When you call to mind 
your own feelings as a father, and when you take 
lessons from the household, then your conception of a 
being that is true to the laws of the universe must 
recognize the principle of suffering one for another. 
What would you not do for a child ? How much 
would you not suffer ? How long would you not bear 
with him if only through your instrumentality he 
might be saved ? Now lift that sublime form of 
parental life which is familiar to you up into the 
sphere of the Infinite. Crown it, and enthrone it, 
and call it God, Savior, and how glorious it becomes ? 
Is it not adorable and praiseworthy when it rises to 
the proportions of divinity, and becomes typical of the 
character of the Creator himself ? " 

Regeneration. 

"A man goes to the minister, and says, ' What must 
I do to secure eternal life? 1 'You must repent,' says 
the minister. So the man cries, and cries, and cries, 
and feels bad, and feels bad, and feels bad, and feels 
bad. That is the way he pays for his insurance. By- 
and-by he feels better, and he tells the minister. ' You 
have had your bad state, and you have come to your 
joyful state, and now you have your hope.' And the 
man goes home, and says to his wife, ' My dear, I 



MK. BEECHEIi's BELIEF. 431 

have passed from death unto life; and, come what 
may, I am going to be saved. I may wander, to be 
sure; but I have my evidence, my hope, my assur- 
ance. Oh! is there any heresy comparable with this 
spiritual indifference and spiritual security!" 

" Sometimes men complain of the doctrine of a 
regenerated life, as if it were a requisition; it is not, 
it is a refuge. Oh, what would not a criminal, who at 
thirty-five years of age found himself stung with dis- 
grace, and overwhelmed Avith odium, give, if in the 
policy of human society there should be any method 
by which he could begin back again, as if he had not 
begun at all, and with all his accumulated experience 
build his character anew! But in the economy of 
God in Christianity there is such a thing as a man at 
fifty and sixty years of age — hoary-headed in trans- 
gression, deeply defiled, struck through and through 
with the fast colors of depravity — having a chance to 
become a true child again. God sets a partition-wall 
between him and past transgressions, and says, ' I will 
remember them no more forever.' " 

The Bible. 

" There is no theory or philosophy of inspiration 
propounded in any part of the sacred books. It is 
manifest that it is a divine influence, an inbreathing 
of God upon those who wrote ; but the theories of in- 



432 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

spiration are modern and human. We may take it as 
stated in general that the sacred books were composed 
and given to the church under divine direction or 
influence." 

" Bishop Colenso thinks he has shown that there 
are mistakes in the writings of Moses. Very likely. 
And suppose it should be shown that Moses never 
wrote them at all? What then? It would be shown, 
that is all. And suppose they should be taken out of 
the Bible, what then? They would be taken out, that 
is all. And how would it be with those that are left? 
Why, they would be left, that is all. Cipher away 
about Moses, fools ! I will cling to the hope of Christ 
and salvation by him." 

" I declare that Christian instruction is more 
profitable than anything else in the whole Bible. 
The doctrines of humility, meekness, gentleness, non- 
resistance under injuries, the whole schedule of Chris- 
tian dispositions which were marked out by the 
Savior, shine as though they were so many gems and 
jewels brought down from the bosom of God." 

The Church, fiects and Sacraments. 

So far from objecting to sects, he highly approved 
of them. He says they are like flowers, all born of 
the sun, and brought into their life and power, and 
yet they are widely different in their structure and 



ME. BEECHEli\s BELIEF 433 

appearance. "Would you," be exclaims, "reduce 
them all to one, and have nothing but daisies, nothing 
but tulips, or nothing but violets?" 

"I believe in the organization of Christians into 
churches, as I believe in the forming of churches, by 
elective affinities, into sects." 

"I do not see any harm in denominations. I 
would just as soon see twenty more as twenty less. 
But sects are not Christianity, they do not 
represent the whole of it. . . . The specialties 
which distinguish one from another usually are spec- 
ialties that have in them a truth which is nowhere 
else developed with such breadth and force. 
Christianity is represented by the sum of all the sects 
— not by any one of them." 

"I do not object to bishops; I dare say I should 
like to be a bishop myself." 

" When we come to be released from the narrow- 
ness of our own church or sect, how joyful is the broth- 
erhood of good men, and how strong are we ! " 

Infidelity and the Devil. 

" The devil is distributive in our days — some of 
him is in governments, some of him is in judges," 
etc. 

He condemns " the roystering infidelity of vulgar 



434 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

men," and also " the cold indifference of educated 
materialism." 

"Unbelief," he says — such unbelief as abounds 
amongst the intelligent young men of our days-»- 
" unbelief is the drifting of sensitive natures, fam- 
ished and hungering and searching for something that 
shall feed them." 

Secular Truth. 

" If I know my own business — and the presumption 
is I do — it is to hunt men and to study them. . . 
Do you suppose I study old, musty books when I 
want to preach? I study you! When I want to 
deliver a discourse on theology, I study you! When 
I want to know more about the doctrine of depravity, 
I study you! When I want to know what is right and 
what is wrong, I see how you do; and I have abundant 
illustrations on every side!" 

" I know that there are operations in railway man- 
agement that outrage every law of prudence. I know 
that when mighty capital is combined and capitalists 
are joined together, a fraternity of villains, they shall 
be able to swamp legislatures, and sweep whole com- 
munities to destruction. And when this accumulation 
of peril begins to globe up and fill the very horizon, 
I know it is my business to sound the alarm and say 
to men, ' There is no prosperity to society so long as 



MR. BEECHEli's BELIEF 435 

such gigantic swindles and frauds as these are going 
on.' And when I do say it, they say to me, 'Are you 
a railroad man ? ' ' No ; but I am after railroad men. ' 
' Do you understand this business ? ' ' No ; but I 
understand the men that are in this business.' Is it a 
part of your parochial affairs to meddle with such 
matters ? ' ' Yes ; it is a part of my parochial affairs. 
I am a citizen of the United States; and you are my 
parishioners; and I see that you are criminals, pursu- 
ing culpable courses which violate honesty, and purity, 
and conscience, and though you are not honorable 
men, and do not pass for such before God, though you 
may before men ; and it is just my business to tell 
you these things. ' And when it is said, ' No one can 
give advice in regard to the affairs of any given 
department unless he belongs to those affairs,' I say 
that a cock does not need to be in bed with you to 
know that morning has come and crow! It is because 
he is out of doors, and sits aloft, and sees when the 
sun is coming up, that he becomes the clarion of the 
morning, and gives you the signal for waking up." 

Marriage. 

" Young men just beginning life need what they 
can not have. At no after period, perhaps, in their 
life do young men need the inspiration of virtuous 
love and the sympathy of a companion in their self- 



436 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

denying toil, as when they first enter the battle for 
their own support." 

"Early marriages are permanent moralities, and 
deferred marriages are temptations to wickedness. 
And yet every year it becomes more and more difficult, 
concurrent with the reigning ideas of society, for 
young men to enter upon that matrimonial state which 
is the proper guard of their virtue, as well as the 
source of their courage and enterprise. The battle of 
life is almost always at the beginning. Then it is 
that a man needs wedlock." 

" Society is bad when two can not live cheaper 
than one! And young men are under bad influ- 
ences who, when in the very morning of life, and 
better fitted than at any later period to grow to- 
gether with one who is their equal and mate, are 
debarred from marrying through scores of years from 
mere prudential considerations, and the heart, and life 
are sacrificed to the pocket. They are tempted to sub- 
stitute ambition for love, when, at last, over the ashes 
and expiring embers of their early romance, they 
select their wife. It is said that men who wait till 
they are forty or forty-five years of age select pru- 
dently. Alas for the wife who is not first a sweet- 
heart!" 

"Sister! sister — that is a sweet word, but exceed- 
ingly mischievous, too, in the realm of love! It is a 



MR. beecher's belief. 437 

word for devout enthusiasm, for unselfish love, for un- 
blushing friendship, for faithfulness and honest inti- 
macy, for friendship without passion, for love with- 
out sultry ardors. Brother and sister! That is the 
most simple and beautiful confluence of the sexes ! 

"But that word sister is the covered way of love! 
It is the mask which bashfulness wears before it gains 
boldness enough to say love. It is a gentle hypoc- 
risy t under which souls consent to remain and dream, 
in hope by and by of a rapturous waking! It is that 
is July; and then love, which is August; but July 
and August are so much alike that no one can tell 
when one stops and the other begins ! " 

Women. 

" The increasing intelligence in women is destined 
to have an important influence upon the American 
family. It is in vain that men cry out against the 
emancipation of woman from the narrow bounds of 
the past. It is destiny; it is God that is calling, and 
women must obey. The world has unrolled and 
unfolded until the time has come. It is a natural law, 
and not the turbulence of discontended fanatics that 
calls for a larger development and culture. The 
world's history has traveled in one direction. Woman 
began at zero, and has through the ages slowly un- 
folded and risen. Each age has protested against 



438 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

growth as unseating women. There has been nothing 
that men have been so afraid of as unsexing women. 
Ah! God's work was too well done originally for that. 
In spite of centuries of unsexing, women retain their 
sex, and they will. Every single footfall forward on 
that long journey which they have already pursued 
has been a footfall you should take to Turkey or 
Greece, that which every man in his senses allows to 
be proper in woman, it would be considered mon- 
strous. And still, in earlier ages through a hundred 
degrees of development, woman has been met with the 
same cry, that they are stepping beyond their sphere. 
It is the cry to-day, as woman, taxed, punished, re- 
strained in all higher industries, asks that vote which 
carries with it control of circumstances. It is unsex- 
ing woman! A citizen in our day without a vote is 
like a smith without a hammer. The forge is hot, the 
anvil waits, the iron is ready, but the smith has noth- 
ing to smite with. The vote is the workman's ham- 
mer to-day." 

"A woman's nature will never be changed. Men 
might spin, and churn, and knit, and sew, and cook, 
and rock the cradle for one hundred generations, and 
not be a woman. And woman will not become a man 
by external occupations. God's colors do not wash 
out. Sex is dyed in the wool." 

" In the new years that are coming a nobler woman- 



MR. beecher's belief. 439 

hood will give to us nobler households. Men seem to 
think that the purity of our households depends upon 
their meagerness and their poverty; but I hold that 
that household is to be the strongest not only, but the 
purest, the richest, the sweetest, and the most full of 
delicacies as well, which has in it the most of power 
and treasure. Augment the thinking power of woman- 
hood. You detract in no wise from her motive power. 
Is the heart cheated by the husband's head? Nay, it 
is rendered stronger. The frailty of the fair sex will 
cease to be the theme of deriding poets, one day, when 
women learn that strength is feminine, and that weak- 
ness is the accident of sex, not the beauty nor glory. 
That will be a wholesome and happy period when men 
and women alike will be left to follow the call of God 
in their own genius The time will come when there 
will be liberty for all who are ordained artists to 
become artists without rebuke, when scholars may 
become scholars, and when orators may be orators, 
whether the- be men or women." 

Children. 

I have been called to give up dear ones, not 
once, nor twice, nor thrice alone, but many times I 
have sent my children on before me. Once, wading 
knee-deep in the snow, I buried my earliest. It was 
March, and dreary, and shivering, and awful ; and then 



440 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

the doctrine that Christ sat in an eternal summer of 
love, and that my child was not buried but had gone 
up to One that loved it better than I, was the only 
comfort I had." 

" When the child, a little animal greedily seeking 
to eat, drink, and warm itself, comes under the care of 
the parent, and is taught that it must not feed itself 
at the expense of its little brother, it is learning to 
love. The parent says, ' You must be generous, my 
child. Why! will you not let poor little brother 
have anything ? ' And his great big stomach says, 
'No; I want it all myself.'" 

Speaking of the recklessness of modern marriages, 
he condemns many of them as highly foolish, and even 
criminal. 

" When a man wants a flock, he doesn't say, 
' Sheep, sheep ! ' he says, ' Give me Saxon, or Spanish, 
or Southdown.' When it is a wife or children he 
doesn't care; when it is a horse the kind is very im- 
portant; when it is an immortal soul — anything will 
do." 

"How beautiful is religion in an honest man! 
We often hear it said, ' That is a good Christian, 
but not a very honest man.' People say it is cen- 
sorious. It is true, nevertheless. The world sees it 
better than you are willing to see it, and declares it 
to be a fact. The man has many aspirations, and 



MR. beecher's belief. 441 

longings, and struggles, and repentances; and yet 
these are all of them rooted in a temperament and 
in an education that is being swept this way and 
that by the force of temptation. And men see that 
he is selfish, though he prays beautifully; that he is 
proud, though he is devout; that he is vain, though 
he has a great deal of religious sensibility ; and they 
pronounce him a hypocrite. The trouble is that his 
religion was planted in bad moral soil. If he had 
been educated in boyhood to conscience, and honor, 
and truthfulness, and his religion had been planted 
in these as a soil, the world would not have seen the 
inconsistency which he exhibits." 

" It seems impossible to say of that royal woman, 
as serene as the evening sky, and as glorious and 
pure as the stars which are in it, that she gave signs 
and tokens of the utmost depravity in youth. But 
she did. It was, however, only a fitful manifestation; 
it was scarcely to be distinguished from a morbid 
state of the body, and after the patient waiting of a 
few years, when all the faculties began to get the 
mind regulated, this depraved tendency disappeared." 

" I think truthfulness and openness of conduct is 
the first qualification, and the first foundation of the 
kingdom of God and the kingdom of man in the 
human soul. The older I grow the more I believe it. 
• • • The next element is self-respect, or the habit 



442 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

of acting, not from what others may think, but from a 
sense of what is befitting to you. ■ • • The man 
who is only restrained from wrong-doing by the influ- 
ences around him will, when he goes away from home, 
when he is not under the operation of those influences, 
find his powers of resistance too weak to withstand 
temptation. The last element is conscience. Truth- 
fulness, honor, and conscience; train for these three 
qualities. Talk with your children about them. In- 
terpret them to them by your own conduct." 

Money. 

" So men that will at all hazards and at any rate, 
be rich, give up honor, faith, conscience, love, refine- 
ment, friendship, and sacred trust, and having given 
all these up, God blesses and blasts them — blesses, 
for they are rich, and that is what they call blessing 
— blasts, because it is not in the nature of God him- 
self, without an absolute change of the laws by which 
he works to make a man happy who has, for the sake- 
of gaining wealth, divested himself of those elements 
in which happiness consists. ■ ■ ■ Wall Street is 
my commentary — Broadway is my commentary ! " 

"Almost every crime that fills our jails has money 
at the bottom of it. To-day the whole Atlantic sea- 
board is covered with smuggling — money. The whole 
land is a pandemonium of swindling— money, " 






me, beecher's belief. 443 

" It used to be raised up as an objection against 
revivals of religion that they set men crazy, that 
religion addled thin heads. Ah! ten men go crazy 
after money where one goes crazy in religious excite- 
ment, and yet nothing is said in the papers about 
that," 

" There are many men belonging to business 
circles in New York who ' step out,' and what is the 
matter? Softening of the brain. Hardening of the 
heart is very apt to end in softening of the brain. 
There are many whose business goads them on — 
whose troubles harass them to such an extent that 
some latent tendency, induced or inherited, is devel- 
oped in them, and they become insane. And shall 
nobody mark these things? Is it enough to say of 
a man, ' O, he is gone crazy ! ' Shall nobody say, 
' How ? ' Shall nobody take young men aside in 
the streets and say, 'What is the matter with that 
man?' " 

Dwelling upon the slowness of honest gains and 
the quickness of dishonest speculation, Mr. Beecher 
said: "One said to me, who had spent some forty 
years in honest and ordinary toil in commercial 
life, and who went into speculation during the war, 
' I have been all my life fumbling and blundering, and 
I have just learned how to make money, and now I 



444 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

can make just as much as I want;' and to-day he is 
bankrupt — thank God/' 

Politics. 

" Citizens that stay at home pay the expenses of 
politicians that go racketing about the country and 
doing nothing but mischief." 

" The growth of liberty in England is one of the 
most important studies for a Christian philosopher. I 
regard no one feature of our time as so striking as 
this ; and no one event in our jige is more striking 
than the fact of our great war and the result of it, in 
the development of the spirit of liberty, and of faith in 
it among the nations of the earth. ... No 
crowned head, not even the Czar himself, could have 
put a million men along a base of a thousand miles, 
and sustained them with ever growing strength through 
four years of war. No exchequer of any monarch 
could ever stand the drain to which the treasury of 
this government was subjected, and which was sup- 
plied by the taxation and labor of a few people. All 
Europe predicted our bankruptcy — my own ears heard 
it. Manchester, and Liverpool, and London, said to 
me, ' Oh, your money is but paper ; besides you are 
only a democracy, and what is property in a democ- 
racy? Do you suppose your people will bear taxa- 
tion ? ' I said to them, ' There is no people on earth 



MR. beechee's belief. 445 

that will bear taxation as a people that tax themselves. 
Your government comes down to your people, and they 
do not like it, and they do not like to be taxed to sup- 
port it, and the life of your government depends on 
light taxes ; but our people do like their government, 
and are willing to be taxed, if necessary, for its sup- 
port. Our government represents the living wants 
and the present judgment of our people, and they 
shrink from no self-sacrifice that may be required for 
its preservation.' " 

"As long as a man thinks of what he is going to 
say, he can not be a public speaker. His speaking 
must get ahead of him, and he must go on behind it 
and find out what he has said, as it were. That is the 
sensation he has." 

Beecher in three of his many powerful moods; the 
first rugged and forcible: 

"How is it, brother? I do not ask you whether 
you like the cup which you are drinking; but look 
back twenty years. . . . What has made you so 
versatile? What has made you so patient? What 
has made you so broad, so deep, so rich? God put 
pickaxes into you, though you did not like it. He dug 
wells of salvation in you. He took you in his strong 
hand, and shook you by his north wind, and rolled you 
in his snows, and fed you with the coarsest food, and 
clothed you in the coarsest raiment, and beat you as a 



446 ANECDOTES OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

flail beats grain till the straw is gone, and the wheat 
is left. And you are what you are by the grace of 
God's providence, many of you. By fire, by anvil- 
strokes, by the hammer that breaks the flinty rock, 
God played miner, and blasted you out of the rock, and 
then He played stamper, and crushed you, and then 
He played smelter and smelted you, and now you are 
gold, free from the rock, by the grace of God's severity 
to you." 

This is Mr. Beecher in one of his most delicate 
poetic flights: 

"Is it because seeds have failed in the south that 
birds begin to flock north ? Is it because summer has 
ceased to warm the fields there that they are flying 
hither? Near the time appointed by God for their 
migration the birds begin with their peculiar instinct 
to yearn and long, and they abstain from their wonted 
food, till, by and by, at a given signal, they lift them- 
selves up, and move in throngs through the air to- 
ward the land where there is new summer. 

"Now God breathes a spiritual, migratory instinct 
into the hearts of men. Not because they are not well 
off here, not because they would be unclothed; but 
because beyond and above them there is something 
better and nobler than this life. They long for per- 
fectness." 

Mr. Beecher could be stately on occasion, and at 



me. beecher's belief. 447 

times the majesty of his rhythm had quite a Shakes- 
pearian ring about it. We might select many pas- 
sages in illustration of this, but the following must 
suffice; it closes a fine sermon on "Self-control Possi- 
ble to All:" 

" Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but 
we are incorruptible," and the two garlands are there, 
for the last time, as it were, held up before us, whilst 
we are called upon to contrast once more the newness 
in the earthly and the heavenly arena: — 

"While yet they live, the leaves grow sear upon 
their brow. Their very footsteps with which they 
sound the dance, shake down these withered leaves ; 
and they are discrowned in the very wearing of their 
crowns. But around about our heads that follow 
Christ, invisible leaves there are; or, if they are vis- 
ible, men call them thorns, as they should be called, 
since we follow Him that wore them ; but as the angels 
behold them, they are those imperishable flowers — 
that amaranth which never blossoms to fade or to fail. 
And our crown shall be bright when the stars have 
gone and the sun have forgotten to shine! " 



REMARKABLE DISCOURSES. 



Published by Ford & Co. 
Series I. 
Pilate and his Modern Imitators. 
The Love of Money. 
Sphere of the Christian Minister. 
Morality the basis of Piety. 

Series II. 
The Eight and the Wrong Way of Giving Pleasure. 
The Moral Theory of Civil Liberty. 
The Apostolic Theory of Preaching. 

Series III. 
Paul and Demetrius. 
Coming to Ones-self. 
Fragments of Instruction. 
Spiritual Blindness. 

Series IV. 
Night and Darkness. 
Law of Hereditary Influence. 

Published by Heaton & Co. 

Vol. I. 
Holy Scriptures. 
Vicarious Suffering. 
The In-dwelling of God. 
Divine Visitations. 

Vol II. 
The Earnest of an Inheritance. 
Evil Communications corrupt Good Manners. 



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